Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit
by Peridot Tears
Summary: Elizaveta Héderváry has but one duty as a spy: seduce Hauptscharführer Gilbert Beilschmidt; and she would rather jump off a cliff, which both of them would be more than fine with. Unfortunately, Roderich would be more displeased with that than adultery.
1. Play The Game

_Disclaimer: Hetalia belongs to Hidekazu Himaruya –stares for a moment- ...No surprises there._

...

**"All the world's a stage,**

**And all the men and women merely players..."**

**- Shakespeare**

...

Elizaveta Héderváry stared in amazement at the building—it was as any military base, truly...but there was something haunting about it. It was broad daylight, and the stream of activity was anything but unpleasant. There was, however, discomfort in the air, and she felt it; she was at a Nazi headquarters. Where, of all people—Gilbert Beilschmidt was. Of all people. And of all tasks that she had to carry out—it was to—

She cringed at the thought; she dared not even think it. To think, of all obligations, of all the worldly tasks...

She choked on her own spit, revolted by the thought.

Then sighed. She loathed him. So much. But then...perhaps...just perhaps—no, she decided, she definitely could—laugh at him when he saw his plans blow up into smithereens. When she could slap him and tell him that it was all a lie...yes...

The thought offered some comfort; perhaps, just perhaps, it was worth doing something she still could not do with Austria.

Fingering her now-lemon hair, bleached, she set forth.

...

The inside was big, and no one stopped her from entering. She strode purposefully, arms swinging slightly at either side of her; she tried not to march, for this was not a military drill, not a place to reveal herself. She had no rifle, she had no uniform, and undoubtedly no ranks. A spy has no rank. Here all she was was a German girl, loyal the der Führer and the Third Reich. She was here to play the confidence game, to seduce the enemy into her hands where she could toy with them all she wanted. She was here to play and for them to blindly follow; to be a Siren and melt with them. Here she was but a woman.

The building was huge and clean, of course; grand and almost beautiful. Almost. It was disgustingly extravagant in its own way of business. And real.

Elizaveta immediately went to the desk where a woman sat, also blonde.

_You are one of them now, _whispered a voice in her mind, and it was hers.

She let the German come over her, fluent and liquid as the natural stream. "I need to see Hauptscharführer Beilschmidt." It went well, to say the name without spitting it. It was a crisis averted.

The woman hardly glanced her way over the sheaves of paperwork. The pen worked, scratching the surfaces. "State your business."

With no hesitation; "Information."

A fuller glance this time, sharp in direction. "Your name?"

"Elisabeth Wertheim."

With a nod, the woman nodded and said, "Second floor. First one near the stairs. You can't miss it."

"Danke." The woman nodded again before Elizaveta walked away, relieved that her German was passable. She kept her breath at a regular pace as she reached the stairs (ignoring the elevator), striving for inner tranquility. She never wished to see his face again, unless it was shocked or pained by her own hand; it was no secret that she hated him. But, her boss had reasoned, she would know how to hit him best. His weak spots; they had been close as children, after all. Elizaveta could not complete her inner lamentations; that she had to see Roderich's face when she left.

The second floor. She stepped onto the marble with ease that surprised her nearly-distressed self; and then realized that the secretary had been quite honest in saying that Gilbert's office was more than noticeable; the door was huge and glossy black, cracked, compared to the lines of neat red ones. She had no clue as to why it would be so—perhaps the Prussian had broken it down in some fit of rage or insanity, and it had been mended like this.

She walked towards it; it almost hung there, almost a sword over her head.

Elizaveta reached out one hand and knocked. Her instant thought was that the very thickness of the massive door had strangled the sound; and immediately the totally familiar rough voice sounded from within. "Who is it?" It was a dragged out sound, lethargic and still alert.

"Informant," Elizaveta said with little hesitation, then added, "Elisabeth Wertheim." She stared anxiously at the door; could he see through it?

There was a pause.

"Come in, then." Elizaveta tried not to sigh in relief, and almost smiled at the voice; he was a stranger to her in this war, during this mission, of course...but a familiar, albeit hateful, voice had its merits to her anxiety. She lowered her head a fraction, so he would not notice the green of her eyes, before turning the knob of the heavy door and practically having to shove it in.

Gilbert Beilschmidt. She walked in to see him for the first time in forever; he had inexplicably changed. Of course it was no mystery that something of the Third Reich had done something to him; but there was something so cold and calculating, something new and serious that had never been there before. It was cryptic; how he could be the cold officer he was showing himself to be. Nothing before had been able to bring him to be this silent soldier.

There were quiet shadows beneath his eyes as well; hardly noticeable, but one who knew him as well as Elizaveta herself could see it after careful looking. They were slightly gray, even on his pale complexion. His eyes were wine red, of course; always that strange red color. The silvery hair atop his head was its usual tidy mess, and that had not changed, at least. Elizaveta thought, quite unconsciously, that he looked absolutely smart and even rather attractive in his black uniform. His garrison cap was lying to the side on the desk. It was black khaki like the rest of his attire.

"Heil Hitler." He looked disgusted as he presented his arm in salute.

"Heil Hitler."

"Don't forget to close the door behind you," Gilbert said. Of course _he_ would remind her when it was so clear that she would.

It wasn't hard to shove it behind and let it sink into the frame itself. Elizaveta then walked forward, carefully keeping her eyes averted. "I have information," she said once before his desk, "about a resistance group."

"And?" She refused to look at him when he said it; something of him, Gilbert Beilschmidt, had flickered to the surface—impatience. Perhaps he wasn't so changed.

"They have sent a spy," she said, focusing her gaze on the top of his head. Silver. "The White Rose."

"And?" he prompted.

"Nothing else. He or she supposedly has dyed their hair blonde."

"So they're trying a new approach...," the Prussian muttered. He looked up at her, a failed attempt to catch her eye. "And how do you know? They're non-violent."

_He knows._ Elizaveta's heart missed a beat. Of course he would. Though he hardly knew her voice when it was level, perhaps... But then it was an obvious question, was it not? Not that her boss had instructed her on what to say after. "I"—she rushed past a pause, thinking quickly—"heard someone saying so last night. At a bar."

"Oh? Then what a coincidence that you heard them. Talking at a bar of all places discreet." Her heart missed another beat. Was that _sarcasm?_

"Yes," she said, still checking her shock. "Quite a coincidence."

"And you come because...?"

"Isn't it obvious?" she said, feigning offense and some shame before an officer. "I am loyal to der Führer! All of his petty opponents must be put down on every meek attempt they make against him!"

Gilbert narrowed his eyes.

"What happened to you?" Elizaveta wanted to ask. _Why so serious, for the love of Isten! I thought you hated der Führer too!_

"I see." He gave her a curt nod. "And so I believe I shall see you at the party tonight?"

She knew; her boss had told her. "Ja. Der Führer's birthday should not be missed." She did not miss the invitation.

"Of course."

_Why so reserved?_

He stood up, and Elizaveta tensed. What...?

He presented arms, extending his arm. "Heil Hitler!"

Elizaveta scolded herself for paranoia as she let her face slip into that of the passionately loyal. Presenting arms as well, she said fiercely, "Heil Hitler!"

That was a clear dismissal.

...

Elizaveta did reappear that night, in scarlet watered silk. She went in as Elisabeth Wertheim again, smothering the scowl she wanted to disclose. How she hated the thought of going to a party for der Führer; she had watched her Jews being taken away, she had seen the hollowness and gaunt of their eyes. It hurt her pride; she was in the cloak of Nazi collaborator, Elisabeth Wertheim, seducing Hauptscharführerb Gilbert Beilschmidt; adultery known against her husband Roderich Edelstein.

With a beguiling smile, she made her way past the stern-eyed Nazis easily. Again she entered the building, where she kept her eyes peeled for Gilbert; he had invited her, after all, however discreetly. Her obstinacy nagged for dominance beneath that search; Gilbert could not have changed so much as to be actually polite—

How ironic that that was the moment he found her in reverse.

In uniform he greeted her, and she wanted to choke; _shouldn't this be a good thing? _she then thought, almost irritated. Of course, she had been beating him for centuries, and he'd been annoying even as the young knight without a real country—a change, a nice sudden flip to manners like Roderich was in need, and here he was as a solid soldier. And quiet as well...how could she be disturbed?—perhaps something about his brother's ascent into the Third Reich and Nazism..._descent, _she corrected herself; she held no love for the Third Reich. Her love for der Führer was even more scant. Her love for Gilbert...her _like _for him was hardly enough to fill the tip of those five meters he boasted of—_they're fake,_ she mocked.

Roderich wouldn't have appreciated her lewdness.

"Heil Hitler."

"Heil Hitler." She hadn't noticed the other soldiers greeting their peers as such. She had only seen those with too much dedication present arms. At least..._Gilbert _of all people, when it wasn't Friedrich II.

And then they walked in well-toned cadence, but an inch or two apart. He didn't offer his arm, and it was almost a relief. Somewhere in the grand room they were in, a piano was releasing notes with every tap; not as good as Roderich, of course.

"You're late."

"I was telling off a saukerl of a child for laughing at der Führer's mustache."

A snort.

"Have you put it to good use?" Elizaveta said. Of course he knew what she meant.

A sharp glance. "Investigation is under way."

"Ah."

Silence. Unnerving silence. Elizaveta tried not to stare as she attempted at conversation. "Do you have any family?" A fake smile.

"Yes."

_I know. _"Mine all passed away." She forced a faraway look onto her face, which was not too difficult; she missed Magyar, and guilt still nagged at her for leaving Roderich.

"I have a brother," was the grunt. No compassion; it was almost a relief that this about him had not changed, at least.

"How old?"

"Twenty."

"Is he also working for der Führer?" she said.

"We are all working for der Führer," Gilbert said, and Elizaveta cringed inside. Once again, and certainly not for the first time, she thought, _What happened to you?_

"Of course. We are all loyal to der Führer," she said, keeping her haste at bay. "I mean directly, like you are."

"In that case, yes. He is."

With that there was no more talk, and Elizaveta almost muttered under her breath in something close to exasperation.

The rest of the party was spent fairly—certainly not in the best way, but no one looked at her suspiciously; she melded into the crowd, and that was fine with her. No one thought twice about her eyes, and she only spoke in greeting. Nothing particularly brilliant happened, except for that one part when she accidentally-on-purpose touched the Prussian's thigh—(it would been more promising had it been vice versa)—when reaching for a glass of champagne on a table, and then...

"Vee!" screeched a rather terrified Veneziano, who appeared from absolutely nowhere—Elizaveta choked in shock, wanting to scream but catching herself. The Italian was half naked, and burst through the crowd at an alarming speed, screaming, "HELP! HELP!"

"Get back here!" Ludwig burst through as well, not aware of his brother's presence. Nor was he aware of the gasps of shock that were sweeping through the throngs of watching partygoers, nor the mirth that broke out in blooming clusters. The high-ranking officer Ludwig, chasing after an Italian! It was too much!

It happened quickly, and it was soon over—but then the aftershocks let the resonance appear, and soon Elizaveta was cramming her fist past her lips to stifle the giggles; to her surprise, Gilbert was laughing too! And it was uproarious, and so much like the strange way he laughed. Elizaveta was caught by it, and put completely off-guard; then smiled. She could stand it for a few moments; she hadn't even begun to notice that she was really missing him!

The moment left too soon, and Elizaveta was soon noticing that Gilbert had faded back to the quietly doughty soldier he gave an impression of, though something about him was changed...he grinned more easily and even managed that incredibly irksome smirk that had been one with his face since forever. The corners of her mouth moved.

And then, to her complete and utter surprise, he turned to her, looking like a well-hung man who was trying to romance a woman for the first time. "Dance with me?"

Elizaveta blinked, uncomprehending. "Pardon?"

"You did hear me, right?" he said back. He cocked his head, so very slightly, at the surrounding people who had begun some slow dance with whatever the pianist was playing.

Elizaveta blinked again. Then the heat rushed to her face. What? Dance? With her long-time nemesis?—whom she was supposed to seduce anyway? ...Unthinkable! ...But the odds were against her, and she quickly decided it to be her obligation. She cringed inwardly at the prospect; she doubted that he had the grace Roderich had. Roderich's skill was unmatched, of course; and Gilbert? No elegance, all barbaric. Absolutely barbaric, and nothing else. Unthinkable.

Then—

"Nice eyes," he said suddenly; in a flash Elizaveta looked down, the jolt of electricity speeding down her spine; she had let her guard down, and he had seen the green of her eyes. "You part Hungarian or something?"

_He knew._

But she had been paranoid that morning, had she not?

"I once knew a Hungarian," Gilbert continued with a shrug. His pomegranate-seed eyes glowed. "Got married."

"I see," Elizaveta managed, shoving her alarm back; he was talking about her? ...He was talking about her! How many married Hungarians with green eyes did he know? "And what was her name?"

"Elizaveta Héderváry." He snorted. "Probably changed her name to _Edelstein. _She could do so much better." For a moment, he looked ready to spit.

Elizaveta, her discomfort mounting, held out her hand. What else was there to do? "About that dance...?"

The Prussian laughed. It was half a decent sound, oddly comforting. "Probably too impatient to dance with the awesome me!"

_Why not, _she thought wryly.

He reached out one hand, free from the glove she had seen him wearing earlier. She let hers out, dreading it and almost relieved to swerve away from dramatic-irony conversation about her. She could not decide on whether or not it was an improvement. But Gilbert had practically melted since Veneziano—he had grown!—ran in with Ludwig at his tail; she still had a duty, and so why not? This was a chance.

Gilbert, it seemed, had unbelievable grace; she could feel every mark of his calloused hands, so absolutely big next to hers, and she was well aware that he was taller than her; he stepped smartly, and it wasn't elegant but militaristic—which was good enough. He'd always been a hooligan, militaristic and yet out-of-line all the same. Someway, somehow, Elizaveta found it easier to seduce him...if she imagined he was Roderich; just pretend the obvious bulk of muscle under the otherwise lean frame wasn't there, pretend that Roderich's height had fallen at the slightest, that those hanging silver threads were chocolate locks, and those devilish eyes mild triplets to the hair...

With an inward huff of breath, she leaned up—when did he get so _tall?—_and pressed her cheek against his; she was grateful for the leverage of her heeled shoes. She could not actually reach up to his cheek in the way that was secure, and so she let it rest around his chin. Holding back a shudder of disbelief, she waited for a reaction. None came. _Pretend it's Roderich._ If anything, he did not push her away. And when was the last time she had willingly acted womanly...?

She noted, tensely, the high ceiling above, the grand lights brought from olden times, the golden ambrosia that seemed to have spilled from them in the form of light; and noted how utterly cold Gilbert's skin was, how absolutely smooth; like the Russian snow that was quickly iced over; only even smoother, and clearly dry. Her own skin tingled, and an urge came to pull away and sink into the divine ambrosia crafted by hand. Fade and become one, away from the onlooking Germans and, of course, Gilbert. She wanted Roderich. Very much.

But she stayed put, locking herself firmly to the position as her legs still moved. "Do you...do you want to take this to your room...?" she muttered into his ear; she felt him tense, and then—moving away...in some direction. At this point Elizaveta let him go, bring her wherever; she wanted this over with.

Then they were in a room.

His room.

_Isten, _she breathed to herself. This was it, then. She tried not to gag, nor hyperventilate. She moved.

"Elizaveta..." She only just caught herself mid-jump. There was a glazed look on Gilbert's face, she saw through the corner of her eye. Did he suspect? Why her name?

"Elisabeth Wertheim," she muttered back, playing a flirter correcting. If anything, she though, she should take the identity in step for the sake of it becoming familiar, better for spying. On another thought, she knew that he would not regularly bed with a random woman, and one who was not a nation, after all—he wasn't like that. And yet there was an air about him that let her go on with it. As long as the job could be done...

Gilbert then let her go. Relief did not come; she dreaded the next phase, the next scene. The next act.

Then she would truly betray Roderich. Beloved Roderich; elegant, gentle Roderich; pretty and boyish Roderich.

She would drop.

One foot forward, whole body down. Plummet.

Adultery.

It was then that she pitied actors who had non-acting lovers. To play, and to act, and to pretend to love another, and to go naked together, to covet without truly coveting.

She pressed forward. The room, she took it all in; it was elaborate but sans décor but for swastikas, and even those were sparse; she saw the room with the open door, inviting to a massive bed that was kept surprisingly tidy.

"Where's the bed?" she said, looking up at him, pretending she hadn't seen it. Garnets and emeralds. Eyes say everything.

She stepped forward, at the one silent soldier, the Prussian who was standing. He did not protest, so she worked. Pulled at the khaki jacket, undid the loose buttons on front. Slid the heavy fabric from his shoulders; thick, the almost-waxy black hung in her hands when she reached the elbows; Gilbert crooked his arms to aid her. Beneath, the starch and pressed short-sleeved short. It tested her patience to undo every one of _those_ damn buttons in the multitude, but she was able to, and ripped the tie off without problems. The tie and jacket were soon rumpled, collapsed on the plush floor.

She breathed.

She left the shirt on.

Didn't want to stare at the pale chest.

Silence.

"Well?" came the Prussian's voice.

"The bed," she repeated.

A snort, and then they were in the bedchamber, and the door was closed.

_Behind closed doors..._

She shoved him onto the bed, and he bounced lightly on it, almost comically; he sat upright and she then moved south. Ironic how south was always hotter.

Elizaveta swallowed in strange anticipation as she undid the zipper beneath the thin flap of khaki. This was the only obstacle, the only trial left before reaching Ithaca, or else Troy. That was done and overcome, and she slid loose the clasp and nearly ripped the vital guard off. And the whole time, her head was bent.

There was but the rustle of heaving cloth as she kept her eyes lower, lower than where she was, but so discreetly, yet feigning eagerness. It wasn't feigning.

"Your hair," said the voice from above, and she jumped, for it had burst out of the blue. A snowy hand that she strained to keep within her vision, a grip around her face and a soft, thick tug upwards; one that was met with no resistance. She stared into his face, now calculating, almost expressionless; horrendous, like a shadow belonged to the brow; and she realized that she was suddenly nervous. "The roots are fawn-colored. Like you dyed it. Surely an Aryan would stay loyal to der Führer. The Jews and others are angry. Of course they would be. Pft." Again, the resurfacing of Gilbert Beilschmidt as Elizaveta knew him. "And the White Rose of all people sending a spy like that."

"What do you suspect?" she said back, feigning offense; "I wish only to serve der Führer."

"And why do you love der Führer so deeply?" Another cold, withering stare. The white grip, like a piece of ice, hardened around her cheek and chin. "What is he doing that makes you so proud?—why do you revel in the killing of the Jews and gypsies and commies?"

"Because." She halted, but hurried on, letting the story weave itself together in her mind; it was not hard. "The Jews are filth. They rolled and bathed in gold while my family had nothing but sewer water to wash in, until we found the polluted river. It was an improvement." Still aware that the piece of ice shaped like a hand was holding her face up, she let her gaze fix to his, acting natural, like one who had lost everything; she thought of Roderich. "My brother died of starvation," she went on, straining her voice, wringing out anger. "My best friend got sick. She still is." Lowering her eyes, and her eyes only, she murmured, "I think she's dead." Noting how her hands had been abandoned to rest on the Prussian's thighs, she let them clench, wrinkling the material and feeling the flesh—surprisingly soft—beneath her fingers. Summoning a rasp to her voice, she went on, choking, "And the damned gypsies stole my younger sister!" Despair ringed her tone. "I don't know why, she was only another mouth to feed for them...but they stole her. And she was already starving; she was like a skeleton, and...why did they take her? _Why?" _Letting her voice unravel, she tried to summon a tear to her eye. _"Why..."_

Gilbert shook his head. "I once loved a Hungarian," he said. "She left me, and we fought for so long...we killed each others' friends. We suffered because of each other, and then that damned Austrian...what do you have to say to that?" he added bitterly; it stung and bit.

_Shut up._

She went back to the dark pants, letting her hands pinch at the cloth.

"There," she said tonelessly.

Gilbert moved then, sliding the dress and undergarments off her in one go—the soft silk slipped and dripped off of her naturally, pooling in shimmering tides at her bent knees. The instant shiver came; exposure, sheer nakedness. The cloth was like water. Or blood. Or bloody water.

_Act like you want it, _her boss had told her.

_Act like you want it._

In the next moment, they were side-by-side, lying in the soft material of the bed, and Elizaveta wanted nothing more than to slap the icy face before her; and he had been melting back to himself too! If only she could scream, do anything in defiance...

Leaning forward, she gripped one shoulder, pale, smooth, beneath her fingers. Leaning forward, she kissed him, like she meant it. _Like _she meant it. Broke away. And got closer, shoving herself forward. Feeling the muscle under the slim, dry frame, and then the pale arm, like a snake, wrapping around her bare torso; the air was unbearably cold against her nude chest, with a sliver of pale skin poking at it, and she felt so exposed. Closer, and closer...

She broke the distance, weaving into the tear between them, pressing her mouth to his again, and it felt like some horrible way of linking; making love fit flawlessly, but fucking hardly connected. It was a horrible mistake in tessellation; a mortifying attempt at fitting a circle with a square. The pieces would never fit, they grew up together basically, with horribly unbalanced chemistry; against the symmetry of peace, opponent to the circle of Yin and Yang.

A balanced of union between Elizaveta Héderváry and Gilbert Beilschmidt was impossible.

And it hurt—it hurt both Elisabeth Wertheim and Elizaveta Héderváry both, whoever they were. One hurt physically and one hurt mentally, or, better, somewhere in her heart.

If anything, it was to give themselves over to one man under the guise of an Aryan flirt and a Hungarian adulterer; she could hardly remember if she was either; it only hurt too much. And she fought, she thought she heard her own name being murmured, but she was hardly sure that night. She only fought—against herself, against her feinted lover. Both, perhaps. Sex is truly indescribable. If she could say anything at all during the aftermath, anything at all that could do it justice, she would have said that it was borderline rape on both their parts; and she never knew that she could love anyone that she hated so much.

Then she realized that there was no going back.

Never in a million years...

...

**"They have their exits and their entrances;**

**And one man in his time plays many parts..."**

**- Shakespeare**

...

_**PT: So, how was it? –Picks up notebook and extra pens- This won't be updated very regularly. Oh, maybe every month or so. Stick with me, nee? Notes below on plot:**_

_**- This is loosely based off Black Book, AKA Zwartboek; watch it if you want, it's considered to be the greatest Dutch film. It was God damned hard to find, but I watched the original German-Dutch version, pristine but for the English subtitles, on a Chinese streaming site; lately it's been "blocked from your region," unfortunately. Trailers can be found on YouTube; and those things themselves are riveting. It's an excellent film, and my fanfic does it no justice. Originally I wanted this to be Italy/ Germany, but...**_

_**- One of the things I noticed the most about the film was the history—through the Iron Crosses, the uniforms, the weaponry. I actually took Gilbert's rank through canon; on Hidekazu's site, I looked at the picture of him in the black uniform for reference, and used my own uniform (JROTC, hell yeah~) The shoulder ranks...at first I was desperate enough to make him captain according to my battalion's system; and then I realized that the top disk is actually a button –facepalm- I actually missed that... And the disks are really diamonds, through more specific diagrams on Wikipedia. So yeah, that's his actual rank. Correct me if I'm wrong. I suppose, from the movie, that uniforms were made of khaki like they still are today, through my experience, at least. What, the uniforms freaked me out, JROTC does that to you.**_

_**- Yeah, the historical accuracy's likely to be bullshit here –mutters- I've slipped in a reference—Hungary, though with the Axis, was in secret conference with the Allies, so I've read. I'm still trying to use it right, so it won't be horrible.**_

_**- The OOCness is kind of on purpose here, as you've seen...it's actually quite complicated in my mind, but it'll eventually unravel, really.**_

_**- The name Wertheim is ripped off a sergeant in my battalion –coughs-**_


	2. Die Gedanken Sind Frei

_Disclaimer: Eh...not really, no. What, did you expect me to be a boy?_

...

**"...His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,**

**Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms."**

**- Shakespeare**

...

Elizaveta woke up the next morning as Elisabeth Wertheim; because, really, people change. And that was that.

And to be more accurate:

Elizaveta woke up the next morning as Gilbert Beilschmidt's lover, curled against him and his snowy arms. They were both sweating, and in a torrent of musky cloth. There is no need to describe the stains all over the undulated sheets, and even lesser need to speak of the sheer closeness in nudity; they were close, and that was that. She woke up with a feeling of surreal ness, away from the norm; but it was morning, and a shaft of gray sunlight split the blue room. From whence the cloudy knife came, the sky was coated with an oddly lovely silver stratus; opaque and pearly; silver was falling, and half of the clouds were nimbus.

Well, Elizaveta wasn't expecting welcoming sunshine. That happened in stories, and stories were always stories. The weather, at least, wanted her to stay Elizaveta Héderváry, Roderich's wife, despite the divorce papers.

She sometimes forgot that that was so. Lying there, with her nemesis-feinting-lover, she remembered the day they had left each other. They had seen very little of each other since then, though the day she had told him that she was going to leave him for good, leave him for another...

What had possessed her to do so?—to let him feel his artful heart shatter like the fragile glass it was. She could have hidden it; and she loved him, she really did. She pretended that they were still in matrimony; to hell with divorce papers!

Moving her head at the slightest, she shook herself back to the present; the present was all she needed to focus on, and the future, but less so. She was Elisabeth Wertheim now; if she was not yet, then when ever? This was Gilbert Beilschmidt, and his face was one of complete and utter peace; he had the slightest wrinkle marring his otherwise smooth brow, and she almost enjoyed the sight of him. It seemed like something to look at that was completely new, and he looked almost attractive in sleep. The features were absolutely still but for the breaths that moved in and out of his nose. There was a feeling of complete safety, lying in his arms there—she had given herself to him last night, and she had no fear, though she was still conscious of exposure.

She stayed there for a moment, lingered, feeling the oily skin she was enclosed in, felt the soft breathing playing over the top of her head. For a moment she remembered kissing him, and he had actually been quite good; excellent, in his own warped way. Shifting a little, she kissed him again, and he still stayed dead asleep. Keeping the pose, she let her arms drape about him, deepening but not letting her tongue slip. He tasted of champagne and beer; and there was potato somewhere in that mixture. There was even the sickening tang of blood, metallic under the pot; dryly, Elizaveta thought of how it was more than appropriate.

She let go and rolled, prying the limp strands of flesh and bone and muscle away. Gilbert was thin as always, she noted. Lean. Wolf-like.

"I still hate you," she growled under her breath, stubbornly; she was being fickle, and she knew it.

She was quick in the act of getting washed in the nearby bathroom, which was also surprisingly neat; and getting dressed was even easier, slipping the undergarments and smooth silk back on. It was only during the last act that Gilbert finally stirred, and she was hasty in fastening it.

By this time, the crack of light had dimmed to a hazy gray that was almost dark, and the rain was tapping at the windows as if begging for entrance. They each attacked and were met with the glass barricade. Elizaveta watched and saw every drop that fell, beautifully clear and silver. She had the sudden urge to open the windows and let them in.

"Guten morgen," she said without turning, when she heard him get up; the sheets were rustling.

"Morgen," he grunted.

She graced him with full acknowledgement by turning, eyeing him in his disheveled state...as disheveled as he could look, with his simple hair and nudity. He said to her, blearily, "Eli...sabeth, how long have you been standing there?"

Elizaveta said immediately, "A few minutes."

"Really."

"Ja." After a moment of thought, she straightened herself, letting her arms rest at her side with her thumbs nesting at the surface her staircased fingers, pressed against the seams of her dress; letting her feet touch at the heels for a forty-five degree angle, she saluted. "Heil Hitler."

It was an impulsive act, and she did not know of the exact way to explain why she had done so; perhaps it was to see Gilbert's reaction, for any change from last night. She stared at him, almost disappointed, as he gave a careless "Heil Hitler." At least he lacked the vigor; that was a slightly hopeful improvement.

Summoning a smile—Elizaveta found that it was slightly easier to do so, and it was barely noticeable—she walked over and leaned to press a kiss to the Prussian's lips. They were chapped and ripped by years of militaristic experience, and she savored the taste of ferocity on them. Gilbert complied.

At least this act was well and done—it would carry on until the climax, at least.

...

Elizaveta left later, heil Hitler'ing to all those who did so in her direction, and she left, left the giant swastika marking the Third Reich, outside, past the Nazis; there were a few wolf whistles and she returned them with small smiles.

The air outside was gray, which was obvious, and welcoming of spring rain.

There was nothing to be done, really—she had a small apartment in an almost run-down building, and she simply walked around the German streets, musing upon the events of the day before and the night that followed. She had to think of the next course of action, the next stage. Her first thought had been to find Veneziano, but she had decided that he would recognize her; she had raised him, after all, dim as he was. And there was no need to renew the yellow of her hair—it was still thankfully lemon-like, and was as yellow as the next Aryan. Perhaps she should have gotten contacts, but her boss had commented on how they were completely noticeable; she had tried them on, and they brought a glassy quality to them, as well as turned her eyes a marvelous shade of artificial blue-green; no, it didn't do, not well enough to pass.

With some sadness she noted the beauty of the streets; to think that Germany was whence the hellfire poured into Europe. _A shame, _she thought, though she still preferred Vienna—it was art in itself. She had not been there for some time...much too long. But Germany was the present, after all; she caught sight of a street which had been bombed, devoid of the Berliners. Like a battlefield after silence had fallen, smeared with stories and echoes of combat; she almost expected to see a ghost, here or there, lurking among the shell of rubble. She quickly sussed that probably it was a resistance group that was responsible for this; and wondered how many needed to be sacrificed for peace.

For a moment she felt sorry. Sorry for Gilbert, wondering how much he had to sacrifice; but he was partly responsible for the chaos, was he not?—she knew that he opposed the insanity, and scoffed at the idea of the "supreme race"...

With a meticulous survey of the surrounding environment, Elizaveta made her way towards the blackish rubble. It was horrible—dusty and full of the scent of death. Someone had died here. Several people had died here. That was obvious...but of course the bodies would have been carted off for burial, or else the furnace. In any case, they were to meet the dirt. Lifting her skirt a fraction with one slim hand, she stalked over it, picking carelessly over the dead street.

She saw a hand and winced, murmuring, "Isten." It was the hand of a girl, or a soft boy, with skin as close to snow as flesh could get, and was in a wrinkled ball of a fist. One nail was chipped, and Elizaveta only really saw the color when she had picked it up and brushed off the filth. A hand, severed—blown off with a chopping spark—from a little farther from the wrist. Still pale, and definitely not wrinkled—no, perhaps some chemical had spilled over it and preserved the childish quality.

Beneath her oily skin, the hand was wet and white and waxy—a gritty kind of wax. Absolutely mutilated.

Without thinking, she reached over with the other hand and—with surprising strength from accumulated years of struggle—tore the weak pinky from the corpse of the corpse.

Ignoring the little blood that was left in it, she dropped it, indifferent to the smell, into her coat pocket.

It was as if she had been looking something—hidden treasure, buried amongst the cracked ruins of something, anything. She had come across Kidd's treasure, it seemed, and she cradled it in the pocket of her clothing as if it meant something.

A grotesque finger ripped off an amputated hand, a sacrifice of someone, anyone, innocent of the charges the ones responsible had cursed him out for; blown to bits, for the warped and flying sake of a free cause. If that was what it was supposed to mean, what was hard to lose in translation.

Nations had to see that throughout life, did they not?

Elizaveta shook it off as she made her way back to her apartment.

The finger was just a finger, after all.

"World War II," she breathed when she sat on her bed; the dead finger was lying upon the small table beside her. How fitting.

She thought a while, sitting there. Just sitting there, letting her mind run free as a deer in the woods.

The room was musty, but Elizaveta didn't mind—despite the creaking, haunting quality to her temporary home, she rather liked it.

She had to compose a letter—with some message—to her boss. She would have liked to use an old code, but Gilbert knew that one...back when they were younger; it was certain that he would have remembered. They had used it in battles, she remembered; with a sigh, she picked up the finger and a pin lying near it (they were scattered all over her room) and etched a tiny message in Hungarian shorthand along the little clotted blood inside. (If this was why she had so impulsively taken it, then it mystified her; it was too much like sixth sense.) She recounted the progress made so far before setting it aside.

Lying back down, she let Chopin come—the angry, yet strikingly elegant, tones flowing over her pebbly form. Again she mourned Roderich, as he literally never left her mind these days.

She eventually fell asleep—and dreamed of Chopin, of Roderich, of Haydn and Mozart and Beethoven. In her mind they wore their laurel wreaths of notes, lines upon lines upon little dots that formed the sheets. Peace and bliss.

She could feel the glass closing in around her, and she let it slid in; the only thing that could penetrate through the clear barrier was the air, and it embraced her, wove around her body. Peace, after all, was precious, even on a flimsy thread.

That was when the world shattered the glass.

She thought she blew up, but what did she care?—she was dead. She thought she was dead.

Because she _was!_

The world was fried in a flame of thunder, and she was tossed forward in a heap of black and white; her eyes snapped open just in time to catch sight of projectile debris—and then a scream; it tore her heart, because it was familiar, and it was only able to ruffle her curiosity before she hit something...pain that was almost numb...and then she was drowning in a void...

...

"A bomb," someone was saying. "Probably another resistance that smuggled in weaponry."

"Or else homemade," someone added darkly.

Elizaveta barely calculated. If anything, it was the same drum that her head was pounding on, and it hurt as much almost as much as it did in bed with Gilbert. In fact, during her last sleep...when was that?—just now?...she had been plagued by dreams of it with him, a repeat of what she had done earlier.

If that was the case...then she was still alive...

Years upon years of being alive had pounded a high guard into her; she immediately cracked an eye open, albeit painfully; blinded by white, it watered and fluttered before sealing again. Instantly repelled, Elizaveta tried a different approach; listening, she heard the conversation carry on.

"Really a bomb's work?" someone grunted, voiced from her left; then she realized that her body hurt, and that something heavy—as well as warm—was near her, if not touching. An irritating presence along her torso. She wasn't stupid enough to not know that it was that someone. "Which resistance?"

"We're not sure," said someone else, farther right.

"Someone did say something about the White Rose...," said the voice at the left; Elizaveta ignored the urge to cringe, and did not want to strain her battered body anyway; she felt heavy.

"They're a peaceful organization," argued the right person; "and why would they bomb a building anyway?"

"That's _why, _smart one," snapped the left person, unmoving. "Probably they could've bombed it just as a sort of threat. They _could _be trying a new approach."

"There's always that possibility, sir."

"Have you investigated it?"

"It's still going on, sir."

"Then join them." The authority rang without coming from the voice; it came from the man. "You did a Gott-awful job at the last bombing."

_Ah,_ Elizaveta thought quietly. That place with the severed hand.

She did not expect retort or any questioning from the man at the right, and she was right when there was the distant snapping of heels for the position of attention. "Yes, sir!"

There was the equally distant sound of the opening and closing of a door, an exit: silence reigned, totally signaling the leave.

The moments did not tick quietly, as soon Elizaveta heard the man next to her lift himself from the bed—oh, she was on a bed—as walk quietly away, though still in the room.

Keeping her silence, she listened to his movement, ignoring the pounding in her brains. _Gilbert, _she thought. It wasn't hard to identify the earlier harsh voice. Listening to him speak was the same to her as listening to grinding axe.

Speaking of the devil, he came back and let that same voice sound out in the room. "You're awake, right?"

A second passed.

Deciding to comply, Elizaveta answered with a genuine croak: "Yes."

"Your breathing rate increased."

"I see," she rasped again, keeping her leaden lids shut; her throat crunched. She also noted that she should control her breathing the next time occurring matters called for it.

"It was only half-noticeable, or else that other guy's just that retarded."

Gilbert, then.

Concentration slipping for just a moment, Elizaveta murmured below her breath, "What's wrong with you?"—if there was anything that was hard to slide out of her mind aside from Roderich, it was Gilbert. How ironic that they were the very black and white of her love and hate.

"Was?" he snapped.

"Nothing," she replied, and tried to shake her head; instantly a galvanic shock of pain—was it a blade?—ripped through her neck and spine; her shoulder twitched at it. The shocked cry tore at the air, as she let her body paralyze and drop. The living cavalier thumped against the hard bed.

"Idiot!" Gilbert snapped again. "You're being doctored, you can't move." And after a slight pause—"You're in the headquarters' medical room."

_I see, _Elizaveta thought wryly; his hands were at her side then, gloved. He was _fussing. Isten._

Finally letting one green eye flutter open, she cast her gaze upon the surroundings; again she was blinded by white, but she squinted till it was tolerable. Oh, it was a room. White. A desk with papers both stacked and scattered on it. A large cabinet that seemed to be the only thing with any color among the settings, if not washed out; it was beige. Over a corner of it was draped a large red flag, with the familiar white circle and the stark black swastika printed—or embroidered?—upon it. Did they literally have them everywhere?

Eye watering again, she blinked.

"You know," said the axe-and-stone above, "it's weird." His hands were weaving a swath of bandages around her waist now; he had no shame as he fingered her sides while doing it. Elizaveta hardly reacted. "That I spotted a fleck of brown on a strand of your hair. I kept on scratching at it when no one was looking, but it's still there."

Elizaveta's body galvanized again; some strain, a tantrum in the muscle, a twitch of some flesh, screamed in alarm, and an injury then reopened near her hip. _No!_ was her instant thought.

Gilbert's voice dropped then, to a cold, icy tone; Elizaveta despaired immediately, though a part of her clung on... "Certainly, you could've dyed your hair...that would explain your eyes. Are you married?"

He had caught on.

Her reaction was quick, Elizaveta turned, as agonizing as it was, by rolling around to face him on her back. Blinking at him and the light hanging above, she caught sight of his face, passively livid as well suspicious. Swallowing, she said forcefully, "Did we not go over this last night?" It was not hard to suck in the pain of her injuries and let them drip out in tears. This act again; "The Third Reich is my savior, and the savior of the German people. They will cleanse the world of scum no better than that at the bottom of the toilet."

Those incredible garnet eyes narrowed harshly, and she could see every crease along the pale brows; remembering that she could easily knock him out when she wanted to, she stared back defiantly. "But that's a huge population, isn't it?" Gilbert whispered, his voice rounded with malice; he looked like a devil. "Maggots breed and come at the dozens; they come faster than the most lusting rabbits."

"That's why der Führer exists," Elizaveta hissed doggedly.

"But der Führer is a brown-eyed, brown-haired Austrian—the Aryan race"—a derisive snort—"that is all full of scheisse. How can you listen to someone who isn't even Aryan?"

He had caught her there, pinned her down with no escape. It did not take long for Elizaveta's desperate mind to realize that she was at a loss for words. Before she could even choke, Gilbert said, "Thought so."

Was there nowhere to run?—to fly?—to swim?

He had finished winding the bandages; she only noted such then because it was then when she kissed him again—more out of sheer hatred and desperation than anything. But she kissed him, ignoring the screams that were emitting from her bloody arms, wanting to hold on; she had given up on Roderich forever for this, and she was not about to let this go about in total vain. If she could play her game of deception for the sake of this, be willing so much as to stalk farther on the map to Elisabeth Wertheim...then so be it. She only had until the end of the God-forsaken war, after all.

When they broke away, Gilbert gazed down and Elizaveta gazed back; it was not long before the stare and silence were both completed; Gilbert seemed to sigh—seemed to—before turning away. "You can use my room as lodgings until you can find another place."

Elizaveta blinked. And again. Once it was well-registered in her, mind, she weighed her options, skipping over shock: Accept an invitation of an insulter of der Führer?—was this but a test?—a trap? Then again, she had no places to live, and further on, it was the perfect spying opportunity...yet this was also the perfect set-up. And Gilbert was a high-ranking officer...

The decision, it turned out, was actually not hard to come upon; she merely needed to choose her words carefully: "Fine." Faking dark reluctance, which proved slightly more difficult to pull off compared to her other acts, she went on, "But if you so much as speak against der Führer again, I shall move out at once!"

The Prussian then murmured something—it sounded almost like a slight prayer—before he turned back to her. "Fair enough."

...

The next day, Elizaveta planted the bug into Gilbert's office. It was a silly, hasty move, done with little patience—he suspected, she knew, or at least she thought; but it was now or never, or at least they said. She needed information, and she had gotten as much as a child did stars so far. If she were to be discovered, then she was to make herself useful, not let her glowering people down. They liked the Axis as much as she did.

It was simple—she spiked his beer (he had many a day) with a simple concoction her boss had supplied her with in the lining of her dress; he was slumped over the desk, asleep or unconscious, when she swiftly set the bug up behind the clock at the edge of the ceiling. It was enough to catch the noise in the room, as well as stay hidden away. It was a hasty job, but with immense care, along with many sidelong glances at the Prussian practically snoring over the papers. She felt no regret, though wondered how he could have fallen for the sleeping mix when he suspected.

The rest of the time was spent shaking him awake and cursing herself inwardly for giving him such a hefty dose when only half would have sufficed; she wondered vaguely if she had lost her touch with her own common sense.

It took about an hour and a half, and Elizaveta stalled whenever people called; "Hauptscharführer Beilschmidt is extremely busy [a curt smile] and needs no distractions. Please come back later."

During the rest of the time, she ran dye through her hair, finding the naked spot Gilbert had pointed out so coldly; with a hiss of irritation, she smoothed it out as it paled.

Her wounds from the explosion had healed quickly—steadily, but quickly; at the least, they could not hold her back: A broken rib, shards of glass imbedded along her arms (plucked out), gashes around her legs and another down her side. The only thing they did to an experienced fighter like her was slow her down, and they did so horribly. The rib had been cared for, though she insisted on moving about, and did so with surprising dignity.

Sitting alongside the desk, then, practically slapping Gilbert—_Hauptscharführer Beilschmidt, _she thought dryly—awake, she said loudly, the code her boss he had told her of to signal that the bug was planted and working, "A gondolatok szabadon."

Somewhere, miles away, she knew that her boss heard. _You happy now? _she snapped at him.

Gilbert twitched at her shoulder; Elizaveta did not curse herself for carelessness. Instead, she took a sip from his beer, an act so impulsive that its origins were unknown to her. Her stream of thought was thankfully empty; burdens were running amok elsewhere, probably tired of her company. Taking swig after swig of the liquid, she let her mind concentrate on it and only it; the pain in her arm was met with blunt indifference.

She even ignored Gilbert, still practically half-dead next to her; she was savoring the cool fluid flowing down to somewhere around her chest and stomach. This was insane, and yet she drank with little to no thought.

There was the blank whirlpool that brought her animal-like focus to the consumption of the drink.

When Gilbert finally awoke, he eyed her as if she were the she-devil herself; she did not even notice until he snatched the almost-empty bottle from her hands. "Don't intoxicate yourself," he said, fiercely through grogginess.

She stared dully for some time before she realized that she was tired; it was out of the blue, and unexpected. "Right," she muttered, before slumping over the desk with small satisfaction.

...

**"...And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel**

**And shining morning face, creeping like snail..."**

**- Shakespeare**

...

_**PT: Heh...this chapter isn't as long as the last...huh. Oh well...**_

_**- Let's see...ah, yeah; Gilbert's bipolar, nee?**_

_**- Um...I said I'd update it at least every month, nee? Uh...yeah...-shifty eyes- Ahaha...well, this time is an exception.**_

_**- Yes, bugging devices existed then Dx Someone confused me by saying that it didn't until I remembered that Winston Churchill quote when he was told that his room could have been bugged. Shoot me. –Facepalms-**_

_**- Okay, both Elizaveta and Gilbert are kind of bipolar in this one...ahaha...**_

_**- I'm not sure if the procedure is correct in terms of German military, but certainly I was taught to have my heels together with the feet at a forty-five degree angle apart, with that way of making a fist, and pinning the arms seamlessly at the sides.**_

_**- Yes, the finger will come back, and so will the beer, and so will the explosions; I didn't put them in for nothing, y'know.**_

_**- In the medical room, when Gilbert says "Was?" it's supposed to be "what." I'm a little against italicizing foreign languages, you see. Kudos to anyone, by the way, who gets what the code word for the bug means ;D I wrote it through a translator "D**_


	3. The Ides of March

_Disclaimer: Somewhere over the rainbow lies a disclaimer...-grabs some acid-_

...

**"...****Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,**

**Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad..."**

**- Shakespeare**

...

The months passed and rambled quietly; Elizaveta, though grudgingly, really did melt into her role as an Aryan; the bug was planted and there was hardly much more to do. The occasional glance at the spot where it was was a constant reminder of it all—she was here to plant a bug...anything else?

In the sudden blandness of life, she spent days wandering about Berlin before finally Gilbert forced her to become a secretary—a position she took up gladly, albeit grudging to let him have the final order. She typed willingly, worked willingly; sparks danced somewhere down her esophagus whenever she did, and she had little inkling as to whether it was disgust with herself or the sheer buzz of something to do. Both, perhaps, but she carried on with this bundle of burdens. She could only wait now, wait and watch. Always she had some worry about her German, though time assured her that it did indeed pass at the least.

(Sometimes Gilbert would point out a tiny Austrian tinge along a word every slew of speech.)

Truly, Elizaveta did not expect a life pretending to love a man she hated to be so _dull; _but that was what it eventually turned out to be. Making love (_fucking, _she corrected herself) became almost daily; she only figured that it was stress, thus leaving behind all thoughts of vulgarity, or forcing a sphere to rest upon a block. It became frighteningly normal.

A couple of months passed; quickly as well, despite the slowness of each day. There was hardly much to remark upon; the wounds from the explosion healed fairly; and Elizaveta sometimes saw Veneziano running about the halls with Ludwig in heated pursuit—"He hardly leaves him alone," commented an officer in amusement before striding off—and giggled; his innocence had not been lost to this crippling war; this was a relief, that there was still a candle to light.

She wished to see him, but knew that that would only lead to ruin.

It was almost too easy...to remember the day when it came. March. March seventeen. It could have been the fifteenth for all Elizaveta cared—what mattered more was that _her husband's heart was burning. _The day Vienna was bombed, she had to rush to the closest-to-adjacent toilet to let her screams fall out as vomit. And more came out, because she could not cry, could not let even a tear to her eye; it was all dry—drier than plains, because she had no time for muddy despair. Retching, she cried silently, failing to dissolve the images of Roderich in her mind: Roderich, at the piano; Roderich, after the battle; Roderich, nearly blown to bits—no, not blown to bits...

"Elisabeth?" The gruff voice was from the door. Beyond the door.

Silence fell in the tiny room almost immediately; it was shattered in the same pace when Elizaveta choked, trying to drag herself together. "Yes, Gilbert?" she croaked, before clearing her throat; the bile still soiled her tongue. Tugging on the pull-chain, she looked away from the mess of grief that sank away; she was quick in turning the sink on, cupping her hands for the water that she used to wash the puke away.

"What's wrong?"

Was that concern she detected?

She screwed the taps back in place before opening the door. "Nothing," she said, trying not to shake; that failed, and tremors rattled her hands. Gilbert was waiting.

"You're pale," was his first comment; he was right there, in the black uniform, garrison cap in one hand; face devoid of emotion...was that a flicker in his eyes? If so, then of what?

_Really, _Elizaveta thought sarcastically. But since when did Gilbert point out the obvious?—he had a way of spinning out the more tightly-woven rolls of reason, of deduction. Another factor that was him, that made him _Gilbert, _taken so that he wasn't _Gilbert _anymore, nor even Prussia; she hated him for that.

"It's nothing," she repeated.

His gaze was sharp, sharp as it usually was these days she had spent with him. Elizaveta met that stare of red, waiting.

Then, he sighed; sighed, and Elizaveta was surprised. "Stop lying," he said flatly. "You run into the bathroom to throw up and then you come out looking like you're going to faint. Is it because of the Austrian bombing?"

"Aren't you supposed to be there helping?" she asked back—letting him win—wondering how it would be. In a way, she was actually relieved that Gilbert wasn't there to torment Roderich; however, his current state let the doubt roll about in her mind.

"That's my brother's job," he replied tonelessly.

"How's Vienna now?" she said; she had struggle to check her distress, anxious as she was. Roderich was...

"Trying to restore order. And the Danube's been mined."

"Oh. An attack by the Allies?"

"Ja."

Elizaveta sighed; not out of relief nor weariness, but a simple sigh that spoke as much as a slew of words. "I see. Will they bomb Vienna again?"

"That will most likely be seen to by der Führer."

_Der F__ührer, _she repeated to herself, exasperated; she was tiring of the dedication to that man, and in every setting.

She almost expected him to grin—cocky, and at least let him mock her; but she suppressed that expectation, and it wasn't fulfilled.

"Ah, Elisabeth." Almost as an afterthought, he pulled folded sheet of paper from his pocket and held it out to her. "Earlier yesterday I ordered a lump of black shoe polish. Get it for me, will you?"

Elizaveta did not move to take it; instead asking, almost incredulous, _"Shoe polish?"_

"Ja." Gilbert rolled his eyes; it triggered Elizaveta's immediate annoyance. "They ran out, so they got me to reserve an order of it."

"But why would you need it in the first place?"

"For my brother."

Elizaveta opened her mouth for questioning again—only to find that she had no real reason to ask any more; Ludwig, after all, did have a penchant for strangeness, and perhaps did need his layabout brother's help when he himself was incredibly busy (Elizaveta only saw him a few times a week, and he was always harried) but always was practical. Creative?—she highly doubted that, but he did update grenades...

Her thoughts trailed off, and she realized that she was trapped somewhere, or else just tied; proven pointless. Her mouth was hanging open, and she closed it slowly, choosing instead to nod. "All right." It could not do much harm, could it? With reluctance but no frustration, she reached out—

Snatched it back with a sudden afterthought. "Why," she said, "would you want _me _to get you something like this? I'm ridden with secretary duties—"

"It's nearly time for Frau Hüber to do something anyway."

"—and," she continued, rubbing that off, "you said all that against me...back when we first met..." Letting her eyes narrow, which was a genuine move, she goggled him suspiciously. "Back when we first met"—she almost sounded like a woman lamenting about her lover's drastic changes that brought her no joy; and in some warped way, this was so, twice over.

Gilbert seemed to glare, but what that stare he gave her was rocky in categorization; even someone who had once known him so well could not tell. Once.

"You think of everything, huh." It wasn't a question. "But really, Frau Hüber needs to do something useful; she just goes around flirting with the men all day, especially We—my brother..."

"Wait." Elizaveta's breath caught, hitched up in a pocket of her throat; her body stiffly galvanized, though it was hardly from the tiny reminders of the explosion. West. _West. _Somewhere, then, Gilbert was trying..."What did you call your brother?"

Now she was sure he _was _glaring, or at least close to it; "My brother's name is Ludwig. So?"

_No! _she snapped impatiently, though of course not presenting it in voice. "You were about to say something else. 'We' what?" Then, catching the suspicion lighting in his eyes, added with veiled hastiness, "Is there something I should know...?" Completing with the tone, she stared challengingly into the bloody eyes, she was confident with the desired effect of her speech.

Though his expression remained locked in its frozen form, he replied with a hue...a hue of something that could have been indignation, though it was also difficult to grip. "Of course not."

_Except for the fact that you're both nations?_

"Fine," she said conclusively; it was neither out of laziness nor exhaustion that she let him have his way, but rather a choice of being practical. It came down to pointlessness, to fight over shoe polish. _This is so demeaning, _she thought to herself, but tugged the paper free of the pale hand and turned to leave; she would be having the last laugh, after all. "Auf wiedersehen."

"Ja," he said to her departing figure.

The arching doorway spanned to stretch, from side to side, as Elizaveta walked through the exit; outside there was the world, and the sky above, which was so blue and breathtaking, as was its timeless beauty. Somewhere there was Roderich, under the same sky that encompassed all—somewhere she could go if she wanted...could she? She had that power; she could go to Austria if she wanted...where Roderich was...Roderich...

She walked on, cracking apart the folded paper by the openings; as she did, she noticed its intricacy—not the paper, that was clearly cheap and thin, but the craft involved with the folding. There were little pockets practically welded into the tree excrement, and the visible text was disconnected, resembling a puzzle or a physical anagram. When was Gilbert graceful with his hands in tiny civilized subjects?—for him, elegance was with the sword, any weapon; another trait that had appeared in his new self, then, which was both saddening and surprising. She fiddled with the folds before tugging it apart to one sheet; it was heavy in her hands.

Holding it by the sides in both hands, she let her focus skip around; it was Gilbert's familiar scrawl of writing, coupled with a strange loping beauty with the messy handwriting:

_Himmel Street, corner. Smells strong, you can't miss it._

_Isten, _Elizaveta thought, staring at the words; such an intricate fold on an average sheet of paper, just for him to write two fragments of sentences that hardly fit an inch or two. And she caught whiff of something; a tendril of scent from the paper that curled upward; it was strong enough for one holding it, and it was the odor of something that Elizaveta could not identify.

Wrinkling her nose at the slightest, she crumpled the whole thing, holding only the sides, and made to drop it in a nearby trash can—reaching out, she thought twice, subconsciously, and snatched it back; it went in her jacket pocket, where it settled with a familiar weight. As if it belonged there.

Himmel Street wasn't hard to locate; she had stalked streets adjacent to it and caught sight of the sign. This was her first time to walk along it, through it, and the store was indeed hard to miss; only a worm could. The street itself was like any other, and nothing spectacular.

She walked into the small shop at the corner, filled with a strong, cryptic scent that both fed and repelled; garlic was hanging from the ceilings, cheap in sale, and no wonder; no one looked twice at them. The store owner was old and kind, called himself Herr Schaffer; and again Elizaveta had to wonder, about the Third Reich, the concentration camps—these were the Germans that had fueled this madness. She was among them, and she could see, and somehow understand.

Herr Schaffer only saluted to Hitler once, and Elizaveta was able to get the lump in paper; walking back out she wanted to retch, but only because of the smell.

When she walked back she caught sight of Roderich. No, not Roderich, but Vienna...and yet not that either. Austria, perhaps; because she caught sight of a piano; it was large and grand and a slick black, beautiful and yearning for the fingers of play. If that could be Roderich's heart, right beside Vienna...

Roderich had preached art to her a lot, many times over. Vienna was beautiful, a masterpiece in itself; it was his heart, he had said, and his mind. Art was expression, through architecture and music and literature. He wanted peace and grace because it was soothing and beautiful, and had its appeal in every way.

That was what he had told her.

It was a large piano, battered but still a handsome work all the same; it was sitting on the street, for one reason or another. No one noticed it, and no one cared; only closer inspection told her that it was in fact a fake; a giant carved lump of wood made by one Herr Zimmerman. Made for a rich Jewish man before the madness; it was a spun-glass butterfly, then.

She walked away without looking back, because she couldn't decide on her opinion of the people of the Third Reich anymore.

When she got back to the Nazi headquarters, she realized that she wasn't thinking; she went about asking for Hauptscharführerb Beilschmidt, forgetting the mound clutched in her slowly blackening hands; when she did she practically dragged his surprised self back to his room, asking, "Do you really love me? Do you hate me?"

"What sort of question is that?" he asked back in shock, his voice grating at the edge of his throat.

"Shut _up," _she snapped back, and repeated the question; she was going mad, wasn't she?—that was the only explanation. She couldn't love Gilbert Beilschmidt in a thousand years, and he could never replace Roderich, for whom her love had been growing over more than a thousand. He was her husband, and husband beyond the word of the others, even though their rings had long been cast off for bullets.

But really...

_She _was the one pinning him down, asking him, over and over, for some love of some sort, as he looked up in shock but with few cries to congregate; the wrapped-up lump was knocked off and squished and melted against the door, leaving a black ugly gash on the carpet.

Madness was the only word that fit, if not love. It couldn't be love.

Neither of them had any sleep that day, nor the rest of the night; they slept all through morning the next day, and no one bothered them.

...

"I'm leaving," she said at last, and wanted to add, "It's all your fault," but she didn't want to lie; if that even was one. She had made her mind up the moment she had awakened, never stopping in thought when the stream dragged her to Roderich—and Gilbert. It was strange, but perhaps she was starting to love him, and yet she hated him all the same; Gilbert's uncomplaining company was not enough to compensate for hundreds of years.

She could hardly call it enough.

He was standing by the curtains, amazingly haven been the one to slip away from slumber first; the gossamer-woven cloths flapped from the windy slits of parted glass; again it was raining, but too sparsely to be really dubbed farther than weak drizzle. The sky was again a queer gray with logical description, and Elizaveta thought that perhaps it was the second day again, as well as the first in awakening from ersatz lust. It had to be a dream, or else real reality.

He started out as a silhouette, then he was a colored haze; then he was turning, and for some strange, ethereal reason, glints of silver light were refracted along the tendrils of his hair; his eyes again looked devilish, and Elizaveta knew then and there that she was no longer hindered by the cloudy sea; she said, "I'm leaving." Lifted herself up to sit, unconscious of her nudity.

It was March eighteenth, but she didn't know that. She knew only that the Ides had passed; that Roderich was somewhere, and she was here.

Gilbert then said the queerest thing, something that shouldn't have been so; but the act was coming to a close, if not the play in entirety. His voice was hoarse, and he sounded cold as he ever was since whenever he had changed. Elizaveta would later wonder if there was hurt somewhere in that voice.

For all her paranoia, she shouldn't have been shocked, or even surprised; she should have seen the signs beyond neon.

"Hungary."

She shouldn't have been surprised.

She shouldn't have been surprised.

She shouldn't have been surprised...

"Was?" she said.

"Ungarn," he repeated.

"What about it?" was her immediate response; this time, her haste was beyond evident.

"You know," he said, now looking fully at her across the gossamer light, "you can stop pretending. We've found out, and now I'm occupying your vital regions." Around his scalp, the silvery flecks of light were glowing. Elizaveta immediately released her small spirits; the cat had finally fled the bag.

Haltingly, she went on in some floundering attempt; "What are you—"

"Gottverdammt!" he burst out, making her jump. "Elisabeth Wertheim my ass; stop pretending! You know I knew about the bug?—dummkopf, I was feigning sleep; I was expecting it, and I laced that beer, so you wouldn't notice when I was checking for where the bug was." His eyes were blazing as he took a step forward; two. "You absolutely suck at being a spy; did you honestly think that you could fool me after being in contact since we were born?"

"I..." Elizaveta's mouth was open; she stared at him with stark green eyes, saying everything that couldn't really be said in voice. The sparks of belated dread danced somewhere along her ulterior torso; already she accepted it. It was as if she had stepped off a cliff, somewhere open; that feeling—the cliffhanger analogy.

It was then that she caught sight of the gun in Gilbert's hand; it was sleek and dark in his ice-white hand, already prepared to fire, the tilt of its barrel indicated that. This was not that first time Elizaveta had seen him armed, and armed in a room...but her reaction was clear—she was shocked; and she was expecting him to shoot at her then and there. She was almost prepared for death, to meet it head-on; instantly she was thinking of her long and plentiful life, ringed with love and hate both, as any other. She wanted to fight, and yet something restrained her, pulled back the warrior lingering within. Perhaps she was tired, exhausted, tired of fighting. Of deception. Of being an actress. Perhaps she deserved it; betraying Roderich and betraying Gilbert—one for leaving for their common rival; two for tricking her life's enemy to bed. And perhaps a three—a y of vowels—for doing it all horribly; so that there were nothing but shambles left for her country. It came down to nothing.

Her throat was dry; she had failed, failed everything within a small amount of time; as if her whole life had been building up just for this.

She thought there was a spark of madness in Gilbert's eyes; and thought that she herself was perhaps going mad, if not already; then they were made for each other, forever a horrible balance. But they had lived so long and experienced as much; were they already demented beyond it.

Her thoughts were flinging themselves about in so many places in such few seconds; she down the barrel as best as she could with it pointing to the carpeted floor, also flecked with phantom dew. There would soon be a bit of lead thundering from the chiseled cylinder, and she would be then dying, something hurting, something red leaking from _her, _onto the lovely carpet of the floor, feeding the moss with her nourishing blood for it to only shrivel up in the end. Already she was imagining the sharp death that was to come, and waited almost patiently; the shock then wore off as it had come. Leveling her eyes to look right into the Prussian's, staring down into hell itself, she said flatly, "Shoot."

She waited.

The barrel was tilted ever so closer; Elizaveta was expectant.

"Shoot," she prompted him again, still so toneless; it dragged the slight Austrian into her voice, and that made Gilbert's unchanged eyes narrow.

"Dummkopf," he said finally. "You have information."

And just like that, some child in Elizaveta was deprived of the piece of candy. She was instantly sorely disappointed; she immediately snapped, "Shoot already!"

"Nein," he said back as coldly as she had spoken hotly. "I want to know exactly why you're here—"

"Because you already know," she said. "I'm a spy, and I was in secret conference with the Allies. I was sent to aid them discreetly, and I've failed. Roderich has been attacked. Shoot me now."

"Since when have you been the kind to _want_ to die just like that?" he growled, his eyes betraying the feral part of him; he _was _feral, always had been, and it was showing. What he was before was leaking out through the cracks of his new tin personality. He had just been trying to seal it away, Elizaveta realized, though the reasons behind this attempt were still beyond her.

"Just shoot," she repeated, and his eyes were blazing when he stepped forward on the carpet that she _wanted_ to be bloody.

"Tell me everything," he said. "Everything. I need to know what information you've collected. Because today I'm taking your vital regions.

"You need to be alive for that. Those are your people. And what are they without an identity?"

"They can be Austrian then," Elizaveta countered; this decision sounded almost ridiculous, but she was already firmly planted into it; the Austro-Hungarian empire could live without the treacherous half of the union, dead or not.

There was a pause as Gilbert stared at her; it was then when she noticed the quake of the gun as it was lifted—the Prussian was shaking. And yet...why? She stared at him, calculating. Gilbert replied simply, "They can't be covered with pretty lace; they're Hungarian."

"You," she hissed, pulling herself higher to face him more properly—his words were sawing at what checked her—"just hate Austria. Roderich. You hate him because you think he's a weak hypocritical member of the Habsburg. I married him, and our people mingled—"

"Austria or not, you're still Hungarian no matter what!" he retorted loudly. "If your people lose their identity, they'll have nothing left! I fought for this for years, Elizaveta; you got lucky, you still have that identity, don't throw it away like that!" Anger colored his voice in dark tones and vibrant flames as he went on: "I still have to fight for that, while you're running back to Austria, throwing all that away—"

"Stop!" Elizaveta snapped; something had been hit; Gilbert had plucked the right string. Her heart was pounding red as she felt something dark and searing tear through her stomach...it could have been guilt. To think that he had to deal with everything, so alone...

"Friend or not," he said, unrelenting, "you still sicken me."

"Oh, and you talk about ethics!" Her voice was shrill.

"Ethics can be twisted," he replied harshly, and added cruelly, "To think you were helping the Allies, the same ones who bombed Austria..."

"Shut up." It was then that she leaned forward, finally, to slap him across the face. It was loud, fiery and snapping; a sharp move that brought Gilbert's head to a near-impossible angle at the impact. Pulling back, Elizaveta relished the vivid red mark upon the white face; hatred was tearing at her limbs, and she only wanted to hurt him more; Roderich, all for Roderich...

The gun was still in his hand.

When she slapped him again, across his right cheek just like the first, he stayed that way; her hand was held back like a catapult to be launched, and she stared at the milky white of his skin, around the throat, the neck, the face.

He turned back to lift his hand, and pointed the barrel at her.

His teeth were gritted together.

"Halt."

Elizaveta dropped her hand, glaring. There was no point now, she decided.

"By now our forces should be occupying your land," he began. "I should've been there too, but I wanted to deal with this personally; it's still occupying. You're staying here from now on."

"Fine," she said defiantly.

"And now..." Oh, his hand was still quivering, though very slightly...

Elizaveta tensed; she had to fight the terms if called for. She would deal.

"Tell me...you hate me, don't you?"

She looked at him, just looked; there was no answer, though her immediate thought was to say a clear "yes."

"Same here," he said, as if he knew—maybe he did.

Elizaveta was still glaring.

"What do you want," she said coolly, willing away any innocence an obvious question would plague her with.

"I want to know."

"So do I...why you're like this. Why you're not like yourself."

He laughed; barked, laughed. There was no humor as she watched and heard him do so. The sound wasn't pleasant, but it was hardly hateful either.

Gilbert finished before speaking again to answer, "Because this war is Gott-damned lost. I don't want to fight it, and West is crumbling from the inside, and he doesn't know it."

_That has nothing to do with it! _Elizaveta thought ferociously. "Says the militaristic Prussia!"

"West sucks at this! This is all so stupid, and they"—they—"have the fucking balls to use Old Fritz as an example!" His grip on the handle tightened at his own mention of the long-gone king...steadying it, he went on, "None of my bosses were ever this crazy. The idiot has the worst plans for this Gott-damned war, and my people are suffering for it too."

Elizaveta stared at him, something she had been doing in high numbers since she had come to play the confidence game, and especially since she had woken up. So this was his view; before it was all an act. Then was anything real?

"Gilbert...," she said, hesitantly; stared at the gun in his hand, still quaking noticeably. She couldn't be sentimental; she was not that sort of person, and certainly not in the face of the man she hated above all. And then again...

She thought she saw him bite his lip; this seemed too much like a young child having to kill but wanting nothing than to drop his arms and run away, unlike Gilbert who had to use his sword since birth and grinned at death. He had mauled Roderich with not a waver of his smirks, and he was sure to have no qualms in killing her. She could hurt him, kill him if she wanted to, and they both had to know it; gun or no.

"Kiss me, then"—it was a mutter.

She thought the gun was slipping from that ghostly hand, but it stayed where it was. She didn't know what had happened herself.

"What..."

"Kiss me, and I'll tell you."

"Gottverdammt, Hungary...you sound like a fucking _girl,"_ he stated.

"I mean it..." And she surprisingly wasn't angry. "Kiss me, and I'll tell you."

_If you can._

And he did. Slowly, hesitantly...but coming from Gilbert Beilschmidt, it was achieving the impossible—it was landing on the moon to touch and scrape the unmoving dust. He placed his hands on the thick bed for leverage, leaning forward as she did, and they kissed like they really meant it. Unsurprisingly, they did.

Blood.

Pulling away, they both held their respective stances.

"I did," he said. "Now talk."

Elizaveta stared again, though it was thoughtful, ready to comply; no pride, mere coolness; pensive.

Gilbert Beilschmidt. He was staring with that look of acceptance and yet still life; that look like the one quietly watching his partner leave without wanting to hold them back. His right cheek was aflame, and there were silent shadows of gray beneath his eyes, which were rubies of hell. Perhaps there was stubble around that jaw so used to clenching, but that could not be for sure—he was young and yet so old, and had never been able to grow a beard for the life of him.

"All right," she said, and she talked.

...

**"...Made to his mistress's eyebrow. Then a soldier,**

**Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard..."**

**- Shakespeare**

...

_**PT: Ohoho~ I wonder if that means I'll be speaking Japanese with a Kansai accent~~ ...sans the "han."**_

_**- In the case of writing style...well, I've been told by Cheri-chan of a different fandom that my writing style reminds her of Edna St. Vincent Millay; my English teacher at school has commented upon observation that my writing style reminds him of JD Salinger. I've read neither person's works (I've been trying to get Catcher in The Rye, though...) and would like some opinion upon my style...because I think I've been trying to follow Victor Hugo and Harriet Beeche Stowe's styles for a while now.**_

_**- While plastic technically did exist years before the World Wars, I still prefer to use tin; and the imagery I imagine would appear in reading would perhaps be more appropriate.**_

_**- Beards. Kuskuskus~~~ Oh God, I should stop thinking of so many inside jokes xD Ahem, well, beards. ...Well, young as the nations are...the men –should- naturally have facial hair...-backhands France- I mean, physically young...they probably all shave it or something, but I took this opportunity to sort of play around with Prussia's age. ...And I like Yao's girl-appearance.**_

_**- Tomorrow is the beginning of March. Near the end of March, I'll be off to the Mediterranean—Italy and Greece. Yeah, spring break, from my school. If I survive the terrorists at the airport (because I'm not a punctual person...), survive the planes (because I'm damned paranoid about them), and survive Italy, I'm good. I'll be updating at least once before I leave.**_

_**- Have you noticed the new change they've made here on FF? D: The poor quotation marks...damn it ;_; Why the quotation marks?**_


	4. Heil Hitler

_Disclaimer: Hetalia...isn't mine. –Le gasp- I know, shocking, right?_

...

**"****...Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,**

**Seeking the bubble reputation..."**

**- Shakespeare**

...

Elizaveta felt the abrupt snap of cold over her wrists and did not wince. This was her reward for speaking.

"Standard procedure," Gilbert said, almost apologetically (but that would not be Gilbert then, would it...?). "der Führer's"—he made a face—"orders. He's Gott-damned furious."

Elizaveta merely shrugged; she was going to jail, and though she detested oppression, she accepted it. She had mild support, and the act was complete; her people were at least all right—aside from those in the camps, to her disgust—and there was not much to do. She wasn't helpless—she was merely there. And afterthought was added when she said, calmly, "So der Führer's going to see me?"—and her own mockery surprised her; she felt no emotion to be noted; it must have hidden itself in the ashes.

Like Gilbert, she was wiping clean the stone tablet and crowding the words in moss.

She thought the Prussian smiled, bitterly or wickedly, but could not see. He was behind her.

There was an awful feel to the knowledge that one's hands were cuffed behind their back; Elizaveta felt it not, for it would soon be over. She was not to be humiliated.

At least Gilbert had been gracious when she asked for time to clothe herself; it only took a period of time for her to let consciousness of exposure drag itself back into her mind, for she had come across a lack of shame. The Prussian was such a femme fatale in reverse and hell—those red eyes suited him. The green uniform that had been so painstakingly snatched and zipped from Hungary overnight was his doing—a miraculous feat, and for something so trivial; the soldiers ordered to do so deserved merit and more.

Green felt good for wear. If only there was a rifle.

She had slipped the crumpled paper from the pocket of her jacket to her military outfit's pockets. The artificial yellow of her hair had been washed while changing—it was strange but familiar, to see her hanging locks of brown. She was no longer an Aryan—no longer a fake. No longer an actress, nor Elisabeth Wertheim.

Elizaveta and Gilbert walked again with admirable cadence, bearing and posture woven to look alike; people stared, murmured to one another; this was expected, and phenomenal. There was shock and outrage, and once Veneziano could be heard crying in the distance. And still Elizaveta remained cold, proud; unhindered, but postponing care for the boy she mothered. The stares drew her poor contempt, for she had known these people. It did not hurt ut it was not to be ignored either. The halls and atrium echoed as a void.

And ah, der Führer himself. Standing with the ridiculous mustache and parted dark hair—oh, _Aryan, of course, _Elizaveta taunted as his gaze met hers; green on brown, not blue. Frosty hate chilled her veins as the Hungarian walked and neared. There was fury in those eyes, and perhaps madness...then again, what was madness?

_Egotistical,_ ran through Elizaveta's mind. _Hypocrite..._

Der Führer raised his hand; Gilbert paused to reply, intoning, "Heil Hitler."

That echoed throughout the room in the voices of many before Gilbert nudged her slightly; off they went.

That was that—the first and last meeting between Hungary and Adolf Hitler. The next time would be when she was there to look at the body, look, once. Those eyes could not meet hers then.

The cells were cold, stony, gray, and that was expected. The footsteps were pitched patters like rain.

When the door was open, Elizaveta glanced around—tiny windows to the booth-like cells were empty, not filled with curious faces. Abruptly she met the gaze of her Prussian companion, elevating to her toes to kiss him on unmoving lips, with a crooked whisper of "auf wiedersehen." Frowning at the lack of reaction she tried again, sans words; not desperate, but unsure.

He replied this time midway, kissing back with lips like death, sans blue. "Ja," he said quietly, so unlike him; and yet still...

He undid the metal cuffs and Elizaveta felt the rush thickly back to her hands, filling her fingertips. They stood awkwardly for a while, before she reached out and clasped one of the white hands firmly; her nails scraped lightly over the rough palm and scarred back, feeling the throbbing blue veins pressed against skin. Unlike Roderich's soft hands, made for but the piano. Cottony, cottony hands.

Elizaveta held it for a while in silence, remembering the tiny hands that she should have held at least once in faraway childhood. They were adults now, and that label seemed almost far-fetched. A few months were a long time, if they could lead her to savor the warmth of a rival hand, one she would have wanted wet and hot with running blood—not the very much dry bit of heat for her to lean into. Was this Lady Fate joining with Madam Irony?—and Father Time?

Suddenly Elizaveta realized that she didn't want to let go, but she did anyway; she let it drop. Focusing on her nemesis's calm face, she backed into the prison. There was but a hard bed that was more of a table, but she did not mind. Roderich had no luxury—save disconnected notes—nor did Gilbert—save the new era—so she could fare, with a burden, repenting like one old and dressed in sack.

For a split second, in the light painted gray, Gilbert's feature's shifted for a formation of wistfulness—then vanished as they both nodded—soldiers, comrades, enemies, and lovers, agreeing. "See you after the war."

"Ja."

A pause—then the door was closed, slammed in its weight.

Enclosed in gray solitude, Elizaveta stared at the window of light. Closing her eyes to shut out the physical tunnel vision, listening to the Prussian's unbreakable steps, she looked to the future, for insanity or else the end.

...

One week. Or was it two? No matter; she needed to find something else to check her sanity, lest it fly out and latch itself to the walls; then she wouldn't have it, and never get it back. To think she'd lost it—perhaps this was a process beginning in short bursts.

Confinement is a dull subject to chronicle—it only informs, and unless there are assassination attempts involved in the story, it should be but recorded in brief—or else, the excitement should be rushed to at once. And how it happened on a day when, mouth dry, Elizaveta remembered that she was a country—how ridiculous that she should.

She was the very embodiment of her people—she knew that, but these little bursts of epiphany came rarely—she was a country, the representation of a land and a people. Only then did she realize it—through the responsibility, the struggles and fire and flame—that she had missed out...on something. She was sure that she hadn't, but perhaps she had...perhaps, a friend instead of a lover. Roderich was a friend, but he lacked...

Still, she loved him beyond most people and things in the world. Throughout the hardships, while Gilbert had laughed and taunted her, going on to stand alone—_alone—_he had spared kindness, despite the times she had beaten him in childhood, so that he could barely even move. And what did she have in the end?

She realized then and there—that Gilbert, for all his struggles to become a nation, had only one candy bar; he had only just that, because something was clinging onto him, or else the entire store...he was at his last throes for life. Perhaps it was fate or horrible history; but he was but a state now. The great militaristic Prussia of freethought, once an empire—über alles...now a pitiful free state knuckling under the Third Reich. And still he fought. He had nothing but the crumbs of chocolate lying on the ground now, snatched by the birds. That troubled him not—he could shoot them out of the sky.

Only he was onto his last rock.

Tracing idle circles into the hem of her beret, she moved onto fiddling with them, waiting for the next meal...food came twice every day, and she wasn't in the least bit hungry when it did; but it was something to focus on. She had wondered, sometimes, on the concept of confinement aside from humiliation and harsh treatment—now she knew for sure that the boredom was part of it, and more than significant. At least Turkey's home was not so. She spat at the thought, but immediately regretted it; the film of dust and dirt over the floor and walls was filthy enough.

And she thought she felt sick—there was fever ailing at her skin. Fatigue troubled her not, but the discomfort helped less; she had picked at the cut on her side, even, just to feel something other than burning numbness—which was ironic, as it was _numbness._

She coughed again; _Isten, _was her trail of thought, _these conditions are probably worse than they look._

Oh, she was fussing about in the case of hygiene—but it was practical. Gilbert and Roderich both would approve. _Joy._

And she had soon learned that there were no other prisoners—_probably executed,_ she thought darkly. She did not waste her time wondering whether she was to follow them or not.

A slot opened, revealing a thick trickle of light—_oh, finally, _she thought, disgusted—she could've killed for some water, what with the sandy hollow that was her throat. The tray slid in, and then the light was gone; at least it had sealed away something to help her. She noted the poor quality as she reached for it, glancing at the subjects—something that resembled mashed potatoes (she would rather not know), a cup of stale water. Good enough. The water washed down her throat, half of it then gone with the one gulp. Elizaveta didn't wince at the sourness of the liquid.

_How long am I to stay here, _she thought, disgusted still. _Isten, this war can't go on forever._

She choked a bit from her position in sitting on the table of a bed—this didn't feel right. It never did, really, but she somehow felt worse than before; her throat was swiftly drying already.

_Arsenic poisoning? _she thought dryly, but not seriously; then she realized that she had hit the nail spot-on.

The explosion at her apartment...

The White Rose was practically dead, if not nonviolent...

She was a nation...

With a horror-filled look at the tray, she shoved it away with amazing strength; it crashed against the solid wall, its contents spilling over the corners. She couldn't stay here. Not with people after her life, not with her wavering health.

Fiddling with her beret she began choking, practically feeling her innards disintegrating. She was practically spewing sandy fire.

This was how the nation Hungary was to end!

This was how the woman Elizaveta was to end!

This was how the actor Elisabeth was to end!

Dust clogged her throat; she thought of only Roderich, and of Gilbert. Others ran through her mind—Italy, dear Veneziano...Holy Roman Empire, who was someplace else now...Turkey, to her flaming fury...Ludwig, the soldier...and Magyar, who was gone and still strong...

So this...this was how dying felt like. This was the blanket of dark was to come, and she leaned against the filthy wall, breathing hard; the wheezing scorched her throat.

Then—salvation. A door opening, blinding light finally rushing in, squeezing in to illuminate the pathetic, miserable grayness.

She couldn't see—she thought it was heaven, for her thoughts were steeping into foolishness; the arsenic and decided to kick her, right when she had uncovered its presence. Swearing at Lady Fate and Madam Irony, Elizaveta felt her will to scream die in her papery throat. She couldn't die...not yet. She was a nation, and she was going to see this Isten-forsaken war to the end, come what may, and hell to pay. Even if the hounds themselves snapped at her heels as she outran them.

And then—an angel. She swore at it too, told it to _get away, _she didn't want to die yet. Her fiery will was returning, and she had not even noticed its absence.

"Get away," she growled at the angel. "I'm not dying yet."

"You won't!" growled back the angel, whose voice was that of a demon. But Elizaveta was not to be fooled; she knew what deception was, after all.

"I can't die yet," she snarled, rabid. Choking on her fevered breath, she ranted on. "Get back, take me when I deem it fit enough! I'm a nation, I have people! I can't die just because I was stupid enough to consume toxic!" She flailed at him, with a fist that was nearly as good as her pan. She wanted it to leave. She wanted it gone!

"What the _hell!" _the angel-demon snapped, and grabbed at her wrist; Elizaveta jerked it back, choosing instead to aim a kick at the presence.

"You're not here to die!" he continued hurriedly as he side-stepped the sure-to-be-fatal kick. "I'm here to get you out, Gottverdammt!"

Then it hit her.

"Gilbert?" She held back her fist, just in case, ignoring the insistent tugs of the unconscious.

"Ja." He panted, stepping forward, out of the blinding light.

_Oh._

Dropping the fist, letting go of her energy, she looked at him, studying the face for any changes—it was screwed up with a clear message—"What?"—and the stubble was more pronounced, unless it was Elizaveta's own prickling delusions; his eyes gleamed still like rubies, but the shadows were clearer. She almost felt sorry for trying to hurt him—almost.

She needed to explain, there and then: "Someone's been putting poison in the food..." She gestured at the mess in the corner, not adding the "I think." It was hard to remember that it was only speculation.

Then, abruptly, and not quite out of left field—she felt the suppression of exhaustion press against her, full-force; she did not quite lose her consciousness, yet, but it was nearly there—

It attacked again, like a hound.

"Damn it," she hissed at the pain; she gripped at something of a stitch in her side, regretting that she had been so bored as to pick at it; it only added to her agony. "Damn it...," she growled again—then there was white. Her fingers slackened and there was the snowy white. Not black, but white.

...

She wasn't quite unconscious—just tired. Gilbert supported her, mumbling beneath his breath about what a burden she was—her own reaction was but quiet pensiveness—did she want to punch him or smile? She was sure by now that he was sinking back to what he was before the war. And beyond; it was what was beneath—Elizaveta was not superficial.

Her feet dragged slightly, but her small attempts at a fine gait helped at the slightest; at least she could walk. And the wound in her side was once again dormant; it was not to bother her in some time, though it stained the green fabric of her clothing.

Beyond that, she was stunned that the Prussian had come back for her—he had said himself, "after the war," if she could trust him at all. Perhaps there was something of importance—maybe her people needed her. Maybe they were bombed; maybe it was not arsenic that was trying to sap her strength, maybe it was an attack.

But they were escaping. Of that she was sure.

"Where're going?" she almost slurred.

A pause, and a glance..."Back home. To Hungary. Your people need you."

Ah. So she was correct.

Home.

She had never been one to truly appreciate it—home, to her, was something else—someplace where she was with her people, free from oppression, or somewhere listening to music with Austria. She did not feel homesick, but she almost did—nearly, almost; months away from her land, playing a game with the enemy while Europe collapsed through and through. Keeping back a groggy tone, she plowed on—almost tripped—"Have I been attacked?" She could have been anxious; and her heart did skip a tiny beat. She wanted the answer to be no, and yet still yes: no would mean safety, yes would mean assassination.

Gilbert was silent for a moment; uncharacteristically; he was hiding something beneath the tin. "Nein...," he then murmured; his tone was hesitant. And why...? Elizaveta, her arm already slung lightly around the back of his neck, reached her hand; flexed her fingers. It was beneath his shoulder, and each and every one of the little digits curled around his uniform once she had pulled her arm up with slight effort. The khaki had been cooled by the chilly night air, and the only source of warmth was his bare skin. The pads of her hand skimmed over the shoulder ranks—signaling Hauptscharführer—before they settled. This was not romantic; this was practical, and natural.

"What?" she muttered; she wanted to know; needed to. What had happened? She waited, impatiently, for news of her land. Her heart skipped another beat.

He still did not speak, even as the pressure of Elizaveta's hand pressed the bottoms of his ranks against the thin shirt beneath, pricking his skin. She had strength even when uncalled for; that was to be noted. Lifting a hand to pry it away, and without breaking his pace (they were soon entering a staircase), he said reluctantly, "The commies are headed toward us." Elizaveta stared at him; she had heard right, did she not? Ignoring the way he was opening her clenched fingers, she asked,

"How..."

"Strategic." It was then that she noticed the darkening of those ruby eyes—clearly, there had been some serious side of him that was rarely seen, and entirely doubtless of sanity. Or else it was a mere spawn of this newness to the tin. Dropping her voice without realizing it, she asked, "...How bad would it be...?"

Now _his_ fingers tightened—around her fingers still, they seemed to freeze still; worry. The tension weighed heavily in the chilly air. He spoke at the same level she had: "It's Russia. You should know."

Instead of answering, Elizaveta chose to let her head tilt back to take in the sky—they had climbed out of the stairs without realizing it, and the burst of cold air—real air, not stale and cramped—was insistent in reminding them. There were stars above; not scant, but the myriad was generous to the black velvet tonight.

Suddenly Gilbert tensed; she felt it, for he stopped immediately, and his hand tightened. Immediately his right hand reached for his belt; the clear air was cold as fire, crackling with alarm. One of them spoke, as Elizaveta, clearing her throat, dropped her head back to look around and at him—"What—"

Whipping his pistol from his side, Gilbert immediately shot at the right with the focus in his eyes flaming, as if this were a swordfight. Elizaveta immediately wished for one herself as she heard the cracking bullet fell a soldier—one man was revealed in death, as he clutched at the gaping black hole in his chest: A perfect shot.

If this wasn't a set-up, then what was it?

More soldiers appeared around them, as the cat was dropped from bag; it hissed with unsheathed claws as Gilbert shot as many of them as he could. Elizaveta clenched her teeth with him as she rummaged the unseeable corners of the ground, looking for at least a stone to throw—damn the lack of a rifle!

Suddenly adrenaline was shot into her veins; mountains could be moved with those; the pain in the side was instantly forgotten. This was Elizaveta as a soldier.

Isten! The soldiers were brandishing machine guns!—and they—they had only one warrior-since-birth firing away with but a pistol. This was so outmatched that it could have been unfair; but really, what was it?—and what would it have changed? Gilbert was quick in shooting at every one that dared to so much as lift his weapon, and Elizaveta was still groping about; sweat poured and wet her brow as she came across a chink of broken iron—it was well-aimed as she threw it at a man with a mustache; she saw blood but spared no extra thought for the downed enemy.

There was blood everywhere, anyway.

Finding more abandoned iron bits, she threw them, feeling like a pathetic schoolboy, but determined, anyway, to aide Gilbert and his slowly-dying gun.

"Scheiße!" he swore as a spray of bullets was allowed to pepper towards him; rolling aside, he shot the offending man straight to the throat, who gave a strangled gurgle of a cry before dying. Eyes flashing, he shot the last man before more Nazis in the background gathered to replace them; in this gap of time Elizaveta sprang forward to nudge him, and they both leaped to their feet, racing across to the gates. This was the only seeable chance...!

More men. They were nearly at the gate! Spurring herself forward, Elizaveta pummeled herself at the black doors of iron, unlocking it and bursting it open—there were no guards, and how stupid—they had probably been killed in the fire, then.

"Prussia!" she yelled—almost croaked—over her shoulder, and he was already there.

"Scheiße," he swore again; the men were behind and opening fire—

Elizaveta shoved him away first; grabbing him by the shoulders—(surprisingly thin beneath)—and thrusting him sideways where there was a blessed wall; adrenaline, it was so useful in times of weakness. She went after him and his shocked face like a ghost in the night, but not before the bullets came. She cried out, throat practically tearing, once, as the first tore the flesh of her shoulder; the second passed her by sheer luck, grazing her temple. It was hot, and hotter when the blood ran down her face and side—still, she caught up with Gilbert, whose eyes were in a clear struggle to check the emotion within them; they were red and blazing in the light of the moon.

Remembering that he was lonely—had been, his whole life—Elizaveta began to say something, like assurance that she _would_ have done it no matter what, uncharacteristically like herself—then remembered that they were still being pursued, and not safe. And, like a beacon of the Holy Land, she then caught site of the river nearby—surrounded by steep slopes where they could jump down and not be sighted. Jamming her jaws together, listening to nothing but the frantic gallop of her heart, she grabbed his arm, and they both ran.

Too late, of course.

The soldiers came, and Elizaveta may have yelled a curse or simply screamed; they opened fire, and though she tried to shove Gilbert away, down that slope that was a matter of yards away, he took one glance at the trickle of blood running down her face, one more at the browning green at her side, and did so in reverse.

In the case of this remark, it should have been punctuated more dynamically.

Because Elizaveta did not scream after they shot her temporary partner, and not because of her weakening throat.

She could only stare.

Screaming was for women who knew nothing but romance.

Screaming was for women who knew nothing of Gilbert Beilschmidt.

He fell, and there was blood. And she was falling with him, but not with him—she was flailing as she was lifted by the force of his arms, to the waiting water below. Flight while he fought.

There was a rush, and time slowed all the same...as she stared, shocked, at his bent back—the world turned surreal, as she crashed into the watery abyss.

And still, she did not scream.

Still, as she stilled in the channel of water, she did not make one sound.

Yells, she heard them...but this couldn't be real. No...she had had her failures before, in the past—many times over...but not Gilbert. Gilbert Beilschmidt had been many things in his life, the only thing he wasn't was dead. He had been a knight, a state, a kingdom, and now a state again. Still he was alive.

He was immortal...

Dying was _impossible..._

"Scheiße!" one man grunted.

There was a scuffle as she stared upwards, at least standing, immobile, held back by a line of—of _something! _She could not move...she wanted to...but she stared. While there were swears...to think she had once wanted to do this herself...

A thud.

A dull, heavy thud.

It was not unlike the fall of a guillotine's blade.

She did not even swear when it seemed that she had jinxed him—but she had, maybe she had...

A rising spurt of blood, an absolute geyser; she choked, and still she said nothing, watching so helplessly like some stupid smiling moon. Disgust came, and it was too late—too late—

Something fell. A head, it could be nothing else; it was kicked down like a football, and rolled in the same fashion. Hungary as a whole had seen more of rolling heads than there were stars in the sky.

It splashed into the water, and then stopped, bobbing up and down, flowing gently near her elbow—immediately the water was a spreading red. Choking, Elizaveta watched the silvery locks turn disgustingly pink, then red. The pale skin was just as stained, and the face she had always hated stared emptily. The moon illuminated all; it was shining.

Then the eyes.

Eyes have, throughout time, always been the gateway to the mind, or else the soul—Elizaveta saw at once that they were soulless. Those eyes that had once sparked so fiercely, so hatefully—she mourned them at once. They were empty and a red void—no, a filmy red void; pink.

Gilbert Beilschmidt with _pink_ eyes.

Ignoring the retreating feet—they were teasing, they did not pursue her—above Elizaveta bent forward, retched, as the checking string snapped; the air was thick with metal. This wasn't Gilbert. This was not...this was not him. This was just a proxy now removed—this was a _thing._

_Gil__bert Beilschmidt could not die._

The tears came; fast, hot, thick; they quickly blended in with the uncaring red water; it could not care that the one she had always known had died, right above her, and she now had to see the color of his dead eyes...and the tired gray shadows that would never recede...and the shady stubble that was, in fact, nonexistent. No body—just the head, it taunted her. Roderich was no longer in her mind; he was alive, at least. She knew that. But something had snapped—a long thread, red or black, and she knew that he was dead. The little knight who had seen the fury of her fists; the tall young nation who had cheated death and rose above all; the stoic, changed tin man, who had learned to love her, who had given her a chance to wipe away his loneliness, just once. And he had not even become what he had always been—what was beneath the clanging cracked tin.

And yet still, she screamed not.

Only a whisper, for her throat was knotted and strangled—how could it have been that he had been by her side in the last...hour? How could it have been that he had been just _there_ for years upon years, and suddenly nothing but a head that was not even him? How, and how and _how?_—and_ why? _Always, _why? Why!_

Backing away from the head, she let one whisper carry itself in the currents of air, to slowly tear apart and fly away as the spider egg sac: "You are dead."

Gilbert Beilschmidt.

He did not answer.

She retched once more, filthy with the water, the head filthy with her. Not Gilbert—just the head. It was wet and sopping and disgusting, and Elizaveta did not care; she was already all of those.

"You are dead."

Turning away, she fled into the dark, the black water letting diffusion do its work; it absorbed her steps in sopping splashes. Hungary.

One glance at her ruined uniform, and one glance back. She fled. Hungary. Home, where she was to go; and without the one companion who was to initially follow.

She had a country to protect, alone, and a man to avenge.

Pandora followed.

...

**"****...Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,**

**In fair round belly with good capon lined..."**

**- Shakespeare**

...

_**PT: HOLY MOTHER SHITTIN' GOD. –Promptly flees- ...No, I didn't feel bad while killing him –shotshotshot- This isn't the last of him, just keep reading! D8 –Runs-Madam Irony –facepalms- Dear Gott, what am I thinking? And I wonder if I can go through a single chapter without those two making out. This is so...fluffy, in a way, that I'm wondering if I'm going too far like Stephenie Meyer, Gott help me if I am xD And I've been making a mistake...it's not **__**Hauptscharführerb, it's Hauptscharführer –facepalm- And maybe I shouldn't really use the word chink at all...**_

_**- Repenting, old, dressed in sack. This is a reference to an old...practice, if you will...that I read of in Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris—y'know, Hunchback of Notre-Dame. I don't remember much, but the French (and of course, probably beyond) had a thing for mourning...as in, some people would lock themselves up in a small stone room with straw, dressed in nothing but black sackcloth to mourn there for the rest of their lives—mourning for some loved one or such. This is, indeed, integral to the Notre-Dame plot.**_

_**- SHIT I WISH I STILL HAD ANNE FRANK'S DIARY –facepalms- I read it last year, borrowed from the library. It was brilliant—Anne Frank's thoughts were interesting as well as eye-opening; and aside from that significance, it gave me a glimpse of life then; as in, the political part of it. From Elizabeth II's birthday to Winston Churchill to D-Day...**_

_**- "...come what may, and hell to pay." A line shamefully ripped off of Wicked, the original book, which I greatly admire.**_

_**- Please review!—even you invisible readers, please do! –Bows-**_


	5. Sirens

_Disclaimer: Hetalia isn't mine :D Now go put a banana in your ear._

...

**"****...With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,**

**Full of wise saws and modern instances..."**

**- Shakespeare**

...

_Stop._

A tear fell. Two. And then, a sob. Two and more...Elizaveta was crying. The idea was less than appealing, and she did not wish to lose herself to sorrow once more—once for Roderich, and now for Gilbert. She did not wish to cry, she did not wish to be sitting at home at last, sobbing alone into her wet hands; she was back in Hungary, and none too soon—Russia was coming, she knew. Day after day there was unease over the country, and the presence of German military helped little; Ludwig's presence was not tear-jerking in the least, and not even menacing; but _he was his brother..._

Breathing harshly, Elizaveta grit her teeth, feeling each and every one of them clack and lock together; crying was no use. She had returned to her home with the driest eyes and coldest words; using fake IDs for Elisabeth Wertheim, before escaping by way of the Danube River. She had swum the whole way, hardly stopping when in Austria (she never saw Roderich, and felt foolish for expecting to). She had stormed her way to Budapest, where Ludwig gave a few short words befitting an officer of his rank; she was accepted—for, even though she escaped, she had merely fled back into the enemy's hands. And how could they complain?—one less mouth to feed within der Vaterland.

Hungary was within Hungary, Germany was within Hungary, and that fit. At least, somewhat.

Raising her head from cupped hands, Elizaveta felt sore. In the head, around the temples, and somewhere where her heart was throbbing from its aorta. It hurt, and it hurt to know, it hurt, everything hurt. Swallowing acceptance with her sorrow, Elizaveta leaned back, still breathing hard, waiting for her own crying to subside. In. Out.

She should not be crying over death. Even if death had taken its sweet time in plunging the black dagger. Had it twisted the thing?—she willed for it to have already been turned; no more pain, please.

The war had yet to end.

Gradually calming, Elizaveta clasped her two hands together, looking forward at the window; she was tempted to shift the curtain, unleash upon the inside a spot of natural light. Home. This was home. She had been here for a day, and it was already a strange change from the prison; the hard-earned calm after the storm.

...And speak of the devil, the storm returned.

"Signorina Hungary!" squealed Veneziano, running in with arms spread wide, as the doors burst open before him; they quickly shut as he encroached the room.

Elizaveta jumped—Italy!—and promptly returned the expected hug, pushing aside the address. Signorina, and not Signora...that hurt. Slightly. Feeling the young man's cool skin and clothing, she let go, not shocked in the least. She had been wanting to talk to him, oh how she had wanted to! He was like an overgrown child, having less sense than what he had had when he truly was one; in an instant he had satisfied her craving for a friendly face. So this was loneliness...upon her marriage she had not ever wanted to feel that again. Even after the marriage it had not come—but it had arrived the moment Gilbert had—_don't think about that..._it stung. It was notorious for just that, aside from the empty shroud that it was in itself.

And Veneziano cured that so well. Friendship and even family was what he offered just by remembering her, just caring...

"...I was so worried!" the Italian was gushing, the balls of his heels rolling as he rambled happily; his one free curl was bouncing up and down in time to the tick of some clock that came to mind. He did not notice the red rims of her eyes. "But then Germany was really nice, he let me see you, because he said you can't do anything anyway, and then he said something about his big brother Prussia, and then he—"

Elizaveta bit the insides of her cheeks, hoping her mouth was not forming some stern figure; she did not want to talk about him, nor think of him. But innocent Veneziano... Her heart, in its pounding, caught in the cage of her ribs, before she released it and asked, mustering gentleness, "Italy..."

"...pasta!" finished the man, before looking up with shiny, shiny eyes. "So you're okay!"

Elizaveta felt the corners of her clenched lips twitch; so she had showed her discomfort. Her jaw shifted to work out something that could have been either a smile or a grimace; really, neither would have surprised her. Veneziano opened his mouth, though, as though to prattle on, but Elizaveta quickly cut the airy cloth of dialogue. "How is Germany?"

It was nothing short of attempted conversation, and not something she wanted to discuss, but her curiosity still lived, and the Italian's eyes brightened more; how he loved Ludwig, she thought idly, parrying the green of envy. He had surrendered in September, and yet he had managed to stay in Berlin, and now come here..._how?..._and Ludwig still treated him awkwardly—angrily, but then, suppose Veneziano had cried and begged for the German to forgive him...that theory explained much.

But at least both of them were alive.

Elizaveta bit, tooth on tooth, and her fingertips pressed together; they whitened. Nothing could relieve this tension, could it?

"Hey, Italy...," she said suddenly, while Veneziano was raving—the word did not fit, he was too...cute—about Ludwig letting him eat pasta with wurst _(Isten);_ it was abrupt, but he stared up at her, with a small noise of attention. She smiled slightly at the little Italian's face; it was such a display of innocence after...

Feeling the muscles of her jaws strain, she asked, calmly, "Have you heard anything of..." Another pause; Veneziano looked at her, expectantly, curiously; surely he would know of something relating to Gilbert's demise? If only at the slightest—it had been an execution carried out on the spot, because Hauptscharführer Beilschmidt was aiding a prisoner, a traitor; thus he had become a traitor, the same moment the thought had occurred to him. Whenever that was. She needed to know..._was it really necessary? _What of a trial?—what of a formal order for the soldier's death? He had not been an officer, but he _had_ been important..."Ah, I mean, have you heard of Prussia?" Right as she said the words, she felt her heart sinking, and her lungs with it; with every word, the weight decided to loosen itself upon her.

"Prussia?" The man blinked.

_Yes._

"I actually heard Germany say something...," he said, thoughtfully; he tilted his head up at the slightest. "Vee..."

Blood was drained from the knuckles, and it would have been stunning to find that those digits had not broken, had Elizaveta noticed. Unfortunately, her heart was fluttering with a savage tempo; her mind was thrashing about on one thing to say and another. All her attention was for Veneziano, and Veneziano only, if not also Gilbert's memory. Suppressing the wry and humorless smile, she detached herself from hatred, for a moment.

"I don't remember much," he said, and before Elizaveta could despair he went on with a light going in his eyes. "But Germany said that Prussia is fine now. He's better."

_Of course he would be, _she thought, bitterly, as she lifted the knife to the thread; no hope. _He's dead. He's with Friedrich the Second now. He's not going through this Nazi shit. _When had been the last time she had even sworn in thoughts? She was not the sort.

Pausing at the slightest, she wondered if his loneliness had been done away with; if he was at peace. Almost smiling, she remembered his war-mongrel ways. Peace.

"And Austria?"—for he was one of those she cared about the most, throughout this war, if not the.

"He's doing better!" Veneziano's smile broke out; it lit up the room. "I saw him last week"—she suppressed a gasp—"and he was playing the piano again."

"Ah..." She swallowed. The piano. While she and Gilbert had struggled to exist, Roderich's suffering had ceased enough to play again. Already she saw the butterfly fingers dancing atop the black-and-white keys, striking each to pronounce a beautiful, beautiful note. Then she wondered, vaguely, if the piano still worked—whether or not Roderich was truly playing with muffled ecstasy, or a desperate flight for a broken instrument to sing again. It calmed him, she knew, to hear the music.

Envy.

"But his arm is still broken."

_Ah._

If only she could be there, and hold him, watch as he listened to the work of his own fingers. If only she had the _power._

The room suddenly seemed to be heightened, in beauty or else, she could not say. Maybe plainness, maybe a stunning resemblance to the ambrosia and nectar room, somewhere far away, where a maid or some volunteer was muttering about the black mess on the floor. _You have no idea, _Elizaveta laughed darkly.

The world was vivid, and Elizaveta finally noticed that it felt like she was being reborn. Before there was surreal ness, an empty subtle void that she was detached from, behind glass. When she touched the surface, the marks had been left until a polishing. The polishing did not exist, anyway; if it did, then it was the source of smudging to spread the fingerprints.

Her senses were heightened as she looked towards Veneziano, who was gushing again, about pasta, about Austria, about Germany. About how he was so scared of this, terrified of that.

Gilbert.

Roderich.

Another swallow; this time, Elizaveta noticed the cracking pain in her fingers and quickly let go. It came as a snap into release; the final blow. What was there to do then...when neither of the men needed her, when all she could do was be there for her people?—she could not fight, she could not even spy. Gilbert was _dead, _Roderich was doing at least well without her; Veneziano roamed free, if only for a while.

How useless she was.

Strangely, this did not affect her.

So this was how the rest of the war was to go—her, cooped up as an iconic hen; this was both temporary damnation and a holiday. This was how she would stay for God-knows-how long. She was useless, and the finest company she had was a man who still acted like a young son to her—and nothing on Veneziano, for he was pure and relieving companion. This hurt, in a mild way like when Gilbert had...had perished. It was to strike harder, sometime later than the very event.

So if she could then release for the future...

The conclusion to date arrived, and Elizaveta thought, quietly, _He's still talking; you'd better listen._

...

_The Soviets are coming! _she mocked silently, head against the wall. He fingers were tight about her palms as she waited for the long wave to pass over. Everything was hard, pressed tight against her flesh, and everything was red, pellets of destruction exploding around her. Her head pounded, but that would have been so even if she were not a nation; she was being bombed—she. Her building was not yet blown to smithereens, but she expected it to be soon, and only her heart was frantic, yet detached from her mind; so it was but the pounding of her heart that signified pain. She hurt, all over, and this pain was so new. This was not gunpowder and gray drizzle, but fire compressed into metal, along with lightning and all other chaotic cousins.

Still, she could do nothing but sit back and brave it out.

For she had decided, not so long ago, that she was useless. She was being bombed—fine, she could do nothing; it could at least drive the Germans from her land. In the end, she would be bombed and ravaged, anyway.

Ravaged. What a word.

Again, it brought cruel reminders of what was recent and still so long ago—the way she had morphed with Gilbert, with hate and a sense of duty, if only for her nation, if only because she had a gender, and could take advantage of it. And in the end...there had been a road, and she'd not noticed the path she was trailing; in the end, she had found something to love, and then had it snatched from her hands, without realizing it had been placed there in the first place. Too cruel...

She hated him, but she didn't want him dead.

Too late for _that _wedge of epiphany, she thought bitterly, as a rocket shredded a nearby field. Ah, dragged back to reality—her thoughts made the world look surreal again. She smiled wryly before letting it fade in its own time. And coughed a bit.

Another rocket hit, and it blew the adjacent building to bits, judging by how the debris smacked the window—the brittleness shattered, and gleaming projectiles flew, embedded themselves into her arm. Surprised at the pain poking through her rubber consciousness, Elizaveta glanced at it; it hurt sharply, and the sight of blood painting her limb only supported how violently she was hit.

Her eyes narrowed, and her heart began beating again.

It was then that the noise became more pronounced, something she had not heard—beyond the explosions and crackle of compounded elements, there was the din of voices: raised voices, escalating higher and higher, a broken piano melody shifted into words, Hungarian and German. If anything, it created a scrambled tune of distress.

An inward smirk—the aesthetics that even Roderich could not draw out.

But really, beauty could be horrifying; else Goya would not exist, and neither would Philip Burne-Jones. At least this was reality, and not some fantastical Gothic.

Finding herself in a position less than agreeable—tucked knees beneath the chin, as if in defense—she lifted herself to steady legs, a grin flickering on her face like flame. There was no rifle, and not even a frying pan, but—

Out she ran. It was then that, in the light of crackling flames ringed about her building of residence, her grin was caught in good vision, and it was then that one could discover it sarcastic, and even sardonic, though over what was questionable.

Outside was hellfire. That was for sure. If the interior had been horrible, then this was what hell was bound to look like: the screaming figures, dying; the rush of distress; the danger; the explosions of fire; the crackling sound of what could easily be brought down on one's head. There was death ahead, but everything was done anyway—so _who cared?_

It was all through a window in Ludwig's office when she entered it, and it was a play. That was what it was—a play with wonderful effects, in which all actors were stuntmen and stuntwomen; and all locked away in safe little basements could hear the radio station, or else the television for those who had it. Elizaveta watched, the grin fading but still there—all coughing suppressed—she watched the sky painted red; she turned when she saw the symbolic doll fly in the air—a child had died.

Not that she was not the first.

A pebble of fire—some loose speck of debris aflame—dropped at the window; it immediately burst into flames, and the glass burned hot. Elizaveta took one step back, instinctively. She stared still, only until the translucent barrier broke, sending splinters of it speeding; again, instinct led her, backing in a collision with a desk, thus knocking the battered drawers loose. Out fell pure white sheaves of paper, all so snowy and neon in the dark and embers. Elizaveta almost disregarded them, among the explosions—shock had not yet hit her that the building still stood—but the text was tempting. She had not read anything in a fair while, and she found that she starved for Hungarian—there had been nothing but German ever since she had become a spy (_a bad one, _was a fleeting thought).

In the fickle light of the fire, coughing, she read.

Immediately there was disappointment—German, it was all German. She was just about to turn away in something like disgust when the light decided to flick at the corner, where she had clearly not looked—

Heart leaping to mouth, she looked back.

And was rewarded.

_Gilbert Beilschmidt, _it declared coolly to her.

_You—_

She gasped. Thought again, _You—_

With trembling fingers, she inched them forward to press down on the slip; a boom of metallic fire shook the room; she pressed all the harder, dragging the little piece her way. This was vital, and the crumbling building—if the foundation crumbled, the structure crashed about her—she would gain little piece of bait. What was the purpose of the dead man's name here?—was it but about his fate?

The answer was there.

Green eyes reflecting darkness, they scanned the neon page, consuming text, consuming knowledge, consuming...

Again! She read again, in disbelief. And again!—the German was fooling her eyes! It was not true...

Again she read, again, again, and again, until something snapped and told her that _it was there _and _of course it was true _and _so that was what happened..._

"_But Germany said that Prussia is fine now. He's better."_

Swallow.

_You—you all lied—_

But they didn't...they had not lied, they had not said a word...Elizaveta clenched her teeth, only softly; thought. They had merely done him in, treated her coolly as both a fugitive and a violated woman—they had _occupied her vital regions, _after all. They had never lied. There was nothing but truth. Concealed truth, through the gap of the rope's loop, through the loophole.

She was quick in biting back a groan when her side tingled—it had healed, and left a scar of sorts; her flesh had memories, of feeling the split of humanity's architecture. Her chest ached to boot—she suspected that she really did consume arsenic, for it was not so absurd a theory now that the coughing lasted this far. Yet still a scab remained, thin, dark. Coughing again, she took the paper in the whole of her hand; she crushed it in a fist: at the same time, a streak of bomb fire lit the sky, and illuminated a vengeful Siren.

...

"Ludwig!"

The ring of womanly voice sounded across the dried sea of dust; no golden head turned in reply.

The wandering Hungarian was soon revealed, as if she had been concealed already—the capital was a wreck of a city, and she was walking above it all. Debris had been flattened beneath her feet. Her image was of a woman, a total woman, perhaps once a warrior, with her roughened hands and torn uniform of the army; her glinting flints for eyes, her sickly smile shared with femme fatales. She was someone everyone knew, or at least should have; at the call of something familiar, something so completely Hungarian—_if only they knew—_heads of survivors turned to stare, dazed, at what they were.

_Oh, _the broken whispers would escape as they saw their nation, _that's what we are._

Because all they saw was faded light. There was a cold fury and indignation that was almost childish if it were not so frightening, and ancient all at once. She rushed forward with steps with robotic cadence, but so fast; her skin shone with sweat and dirt and dust. She stopped for none of them, and none of them stopped her; she was no help, they decided tiredly, before waiting for the professionals.

Elizaveta was searching about for Ludwig—and Veneziano, if she could find him—and her papers were in her fists. Those papers she had found last night—they did the impossible. The impossibility and possibility of letting those impossibilities printed in ugly German text could only be supported by Elizaveta's own actions—she had wanted revenge, and now she did not want it.

What she wanted was a time slip.

"Ludwig!" she yelled again; her chest scorched with the effort, down to the roundness of her lungs to her ever-beating heart, drumming furiously against her ribs; they had a blood rush of a tempo, and it made her feel all the more alive when she sucked in breath after breath of effort; she had been running for the full morning with little to no pause. Churning was the bile at the back of her throat—but commitment, commitment...

Pushing on, she let passion overrun the exhaustion; after the bombs dropped in her capital, she had fled the prison of a building, the ruins of a headquarters. She had taken flight as an ostrich would, and she snapped with the same ferocity. "Ludwig!" she called, again and again, searching for the tall German who held those answers.

_(He was his brother.)_

Where was the Kraut? _Where _was that lying—

_You knew him in childhood as well, and he did not lie, _she told herself quickly, a bothersome distraction as she raced on. _You lied to yourself—_and that bit of thought did not sting, for she was not to care at the moment.

Ludwig was not the same as Veneziano either—but he was just as young, and just as naïve, but in different way; naïve did not have but one definition, said freethought calmly.

And yet still, the rings of _bloody Kraut! _and _Teuton! _ran in her mind, in circles so that they would not leave.

_Gilbert was a Teuton—_

_Isten!_

Thoughts still wrestling, Elizaveta hardened in her resolve to search for the German man—he would not be hard to find, if she were to look in the right place; what caused misfortune was that apparently she could not find the right place. Grinding her teeth, she looked out across the phantom of her capital—it was gray—and searched for a splash of yellow among the drabness. She had done this the whole morning, and still could not find the man. Where in the world could he have walked?

"Ludwig," she growled, incensed now; it had suddenly hit her that she had been searching a whole morning, scouring every part of her capital for one German man...only for all the effort, the time, to be fruitless—if the tree was already fruitless, she wished only that it would tell her that instead of letting her spend so many hours among its barren branches. Barren lands, barren trees—what difference was there?—there was life, but now fruit; it was, at the very moment, little more than shadow.

In the midst of this trail of thought, perhaps through cosmic irony, the goal was reached: she focused on one spot of yellow in the distance, so bright and real that it could not be an abandoned lemon or sign. No—this was Ludwig, and she had finally found him; she called again when her mind told her that it was him, and when he turned, her heart was taking up double time.

"Ludwig," she breathed, for the final time, but loudly; gone was the ferocity; there was but relief, despite the lack of light in the woods; she was still in, and incomplete. Her voice was appropriately soft before she ran, ran towards him, sticky hair flying loose—refreshing, noted her subconscious mind.

Ludwig stared as she quickly advanced, as if she were to hug him, as if he were his older brother and not _him, _the tall Aryan German whose head was not lying somewhere unknown. The head—it had to be pushed aside, it was inferior...

Elizaveta caught up, taking in the whole, the entirety, of the blue, blue uniform; the blue, blue eyes; the golden hair, fallen apart. In the mess as it was, he bore more resemblance to the fallen Prussian than Elizaveta could have guessed; thus Death tore crudely at her heartstrings, reminding her of the tragedy, and the lies. She parried with a swift kick to wherever it hurt, snarling at the triumphant gloating. Looking at the German, she could see the tiredness in Ludwig's eyes; the worn creases of his young face—in an instant the Third Reich was in her mind, and for a moment she caught a glimpse of Gilbert's phantom shadows ringed about his deathly eyes. Both brothers had been affected by this war, and both brothers had kept their consistency—Ludwig, determination for newness and glory; Gilbert, ready to betray and defy, for he and his people did not need the ceaseless suffering.

Oh, blood, was the mindless muse.

Ludwig's mouth opened; those lips parted, but a fraction, for no more was needed; he spoke first, and Elizaveta allowed him that—"Ja?"

The intonation was calm—tired, but calm, and rather sad. The metal of the soldier's blade—be it dagger, sword, or otherwise—is a shining, proud piece to be cherished—and in the end, it is but another instrument to be used; in the end, it is the blade of the world, and time—scarred, worn, and yet still a piece. One piece.

There was iron in Ludwig's voice now, and steel, and will. Elizaveta could only relate in some detached way.

Silence passed, but could not settle—Elizaveta spoke next. The crumbled sheets were still in her hand—that was to note, as they had only become little grips while she searched. Holding the right sheet up, and then the left, she stared at him: his face was impassive, even as she opened the messy folds, even as the name _Gilbert Beilschmidt _appeared. It was stark against the white, she noted of the text.

Smoothing the frayed and burned edges, she spoke: "Explain this."

Her fingers trembled upon the papers; she kept them closed, thumb pressed firmly in support; swallowing, she kept her green gaze steady upon the German's face—she watched his face morph at the slightest, so that, as his eyes glided over the text, she could find it all out. All of what she wanted, and needed, to know.

Ludwig now looked tired—more tired than before. The only source of betrayal to his very genuine display of exhaustion was his face—those eyes did not droop against effort. Like steel, Elizaveta mused again.

She wanted to demand, "Well?" but kept her silence; she wanted it, and she knew she would have it. She had him cornered—if he were to suddenly run, she would pursue; if he were to stall, she would pounce upon the bush. There was no glow of power that heated in her heart; there was only satisfaction, and a hunger, a craving—almost a lust—for the answer she knew would be within her palm.

He answered in German.

"...It's true."

She felt her jaw tighten.

"You..."

"Ja." Ludwig kept his gaze upon her, solidly. He dared.

_Isten, _she thought, and almost crossed herself.

Then the anger came; and it pulsed and pushed at her every pore, only leaking out as cold sweat—the discovery, the confirmation; the outrage. She was not angry at Ludwig—she knew better. She was only angry at something...and that something held Gilbert's life in its claws. Der Führer?—no, he was not worth it. The Reich?—no, that was not enough. The people?—now, it could never be the people's fault, not to be spoken outright; they had fault, but they were the ones who suffered and were pardoned.

But now, she knew.

She knew what had slammed the great Prussia into a mold of tin, one so thin, yet so strong, only diamonds could even scratch it—solidity was not needed, but the soft, the formless. She knew what had created the stoic of a man she had fallen in love with—_because she had, and that was all she could say of it—_and had given her such a wholesome slice of epiphany, fraught with beautiful little fillings of _emotion._

This was what had shrouded the heated heart of a youth and elder—this was so obvious, and yet so obscure, and in the end all so ridiculous but so very _real._

_Name it._

Looking down at her dusty shoes, breaking the line of watching with the young German nation, she wondered. Who triggered such a crackle of change, such a complete rain of metal?—Ludwig, surely, for _he was his brother. _Roderich, perhaps—for without him, Gilbert had nothing to cling onto, as a sort of constant target of his ridicule. No fun, no rivalry—without Roderich, there was nothing but power, and even Gilbert wanted something other than that, much as he loved it.

Even _her. _Elizaveta's fingers tightened about the slips of deathly paper, now gray with dust. They had been friends and rivals as younglings—they had provided for each other someone close but distant, something that was hateful, but something they would mourn if he died.

Looking back up, she glared.

_Isten, _she thought, staring at the hues of those blue, blue eyes, _it's so powerful it can even affect Prussia himself._

"You pushed him into this," she croaked, for suddenly dust was crowding her throat; abruptly it was there, and she breathed it. Still, she pressed on, ignoring that dull pain and sharp crackles as she spoke, as she breathed. "His people suffered so much more..."

"I know," he said, slowly but quickly at the same time. "I know..." The last bit was a breath, and Elizaveta sucked in another dusty one for herself.

"But he loved you..." Was that accusation in her voice?—Ludwig did not deserve this—perhaps he did, but who was she to judge?—she had seen him as a child, about as much as Veneziano. Bias was not to be directed at him, though he had done much to cause this reign of hell, and change. So much change... "He hated what you were doing"—and now she was stating the obvious—"but he saw some hope in it. But all this has shown him—" here, on strange impulse, she spread her arms, for the dusty sky "—that it's a hopeless cause.

"And he suffered so much. His people...he cares about them as much as the next. Nation..." She choked, then, realizing her mistake—tears welled in her eyes, and she stayed them for postponement. "He _cared _about them," she croaked. "He _cared, _and _loved _them as much as the next nation, but he shows it differently. _Showed_ it differently. His character was unique amongst people, nations or not." Then she stopped. She did not need to ramble, to tell Ludwig what the both of them knew very well.

Neither of them was foolish enough to be superficial, after all.

Still, Ludwig stood, awkwardly, unblinkingly. Elizaveta blinked; those tears, those _damned _tears squeezed from the cramped space—one flowed down each cheek; with something of a huff that did not break the atmosphere, she swept them away with a hand.

Her hand came away dirty.

...

**"****...And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts**

**Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon..."**

**- Shakespeare**

...

_**PT: I'm back from the Mediterranean, oh yes. I'll spare you the glorious, rambling details xD Anyways, sorry this chapter came out much later than expected—I sort of stalled a bit out of a slight shake of writer's block. And school –did- hold me back—three projects—one in which the meetings for it went horribly wrong—a Japanese test, a commission for my school's newspaper on my trip, Promotion Board (I FAILED, I MUST'VE D8), and formal inspection. –Shifty eyes- ...Those two crack stories posted by my friends?—my computer had been taken at that time, so...aiya... Back now. The next chapter –should- make you guys happy~ And I am sorely tempted to ramble about recently learning to play the gu zheng, but the unnecessary mention is more than enough. –Bows-**_

_**- Well, since I'd already used Frau and Herr—and in one of my past publications, Xian Sheng—I'd deemed it only appropriate that I write "Ms." in Italian. San will definitely stick out, and I can't use Miss when I've already abused the other languages.**_

_**- Veneziano. I've kicked him out for the moment on purpose. He'll come back later.**_

_**- Next chapter is, in fact, second to last.**_

_**And the movie, Red Cliff. Both parts. Go watch them. NAO.**_


	6. Resurgam

_Disclaimer: Kuskuskus~_

...

**"...With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,**

**His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide..."**

**- Shakespeare**

...

Death was displeased.

Spoiled brat that it is.

And even after a gluttonous meal...

This was a festival for one, after all, and that one was Death, was the bitter thought that ran through the heads of all. Damnation and hellfire to their enemies.

The end was nigh, though. Elizaveta shrugged to herself as the Russians marched in and granted her liberation. Liberation—no, it was just some sort of sick version of abduction, and resistance helped little—was nothing but another wretched road, another battle to fight. Staring into grape-like eyes, she noted Ivan's berth, his mad, mad eyes. His uniform. His little grin. The gloating of a child.

"All will become one with Russia," he said, almost simply, his cheer eerie.

Fists were already clenched; now they groped about, for a pan, a rifle, a sword—there was nothing. In some way, this brought her but a sigh of relief—Gilbert and Roderich, she was reminded, were not here to suffer as well. If Ivan put his giant hands on Roderich...

_Click, _went an object, and Elizaveta was snapped into the world when her own instincts pulled her head away; on time, for Ivan's collar was soon found to be touching the tip of her nose: she went cross-eyed staring at the thing: it pinched her skin, now red with anger. _How dare you—_

Oppression! No one could lay that yoke above her again!—she would never allow it!

Even when a sort of purple shroud seemed to wrap itself about Ivan and blaze as a fire would...even as a faint eerie "kolkolkol" was thick in the air...Elizaveta held her ground—glaring, hating, repulsing.

Oppression. No more oppression...!

His eyes dropped; his hand followed: with a bolt of alarm—lechery?—feint?—Elizaveta took one step back, bristling as the wolf does. Watching the muscles of the Russian arms twitch, she ducked when he snatched at where her waist would have been had she remained still; with a quick flush of indignation, she glared upward; if only Ludwig had not been forced out! He had retreated with such haste, back to Berlin, offering to bring her with him, though knowing that she would not leave—Hungary was her, and her place. So he had left, alone and resigned to the fact that even Veneziano had to leave him, taken by the Allies. Elizaveta had watched him go with as much resignation.

Endsieg, the Germans called it.

Ivan was huge, behemoth above an ant...no, not an ant, but perhaps a lotus...perhaps a hybrid of that with a rose. There is no rose without thorns, after all. The Soviets had already been merciless, ruthless as the next army: the ache of rape and massacre fluttered about the land. If anything, the nation itself would fight.

Useless as it was.

Ivan dropped the collar.

Still galvanizing with mental shocks down the spine, she watched closely. Too closely. Ivan's hand dove downwards and snatched. With a horrified she jumped back, giving a swift right hook to his neck, the closest she could reach.

—And in the end, it almost didn't matter. Ivan smiled triumphantly as a long-forgotten weight was shifted from her belt. With a savage look from one of him and Elizaveta, the paper was in between his fingers...Elizaveta looked, stunned—in the moment it felt as if the appendix had been removed from her body. As useless yet familiar thing was there, the memory of its origins...filled with not blood, but gore—milk skin against the universe of deadness.

The paper was scrolled about the Russian's fingers; somehow, it completed the image—a bloody Soviet, grinning wickedly as the royal purple billowed from his eyes: to top it all off, a dirty cream paper twisted about his raised digits. It was almost gray.

She had long since forgotten about the thing; the small text, written in Gilbert's—a frantic parry—handwriting; out fell a finger, and it was the one from the bombed wreck. Just its weight—it had been there all along, useless, a little keepsake of Berlin; what she had seen there. What she had left behind for her own Hungarian version. It was white still, yet shriveled, and dry—that was all; it had changed, though not enough.

"German," Ivan said, warmly—no, coldly...swelteringly icy, and that was oxymoronic, but oxymoronic was practically the composure of him...him, all him. "This is a finger from Germany, da?"

"How do you..." She sucked in a breath; refused to let her eyes widen.

The grin widened; "Just a lucky guess." He giggled, sickeningly, violet mist shrouding the remains of his person; his teeth were a white and perfect—they flashed in the buttercup sun, which laid its yellow upon the stiff white ground, touched with chill.

Elizaveta stood stock-still then: she did the whole time; something had been torn away, and it lay resting among Ivan's grubby fingers, clad in leather—worn leather gloves that anyone would wear these days...she rubbed at her own, slightly shredded, at the still-clothed fingertips.

Hands—they were worn down: hers and Ivan's.

Beaten flesh.

Looking up again, relief flashed briefly, the white light stark against her crimson crumbling heart, or else the mind—one was meaningful as the other; with that thought, of Roderich, Gilbert, Ludwig, Veneziano, and the war as a human, Ares...

Endsieg.

There was nothing to lose, but more lives.

Eyeing the Russians, who had swept her land into scorched blood, she charged.

...

There was nothing more to lose, and she kept on telling herself that. Even as the Soviets rushed over, rustling the paper with the breeze stirred by their boots; even as she lay ready to die, ready to live, tired as a nation at the end of his time. There was plenty of dust, and plenty of blood, and her body ached. It fit—it all fit.

The yoke had been laid over her shoulders—the niggling thought that it was cracked brought no satisfaction: the Soviets still had claim laid over the land fought so hard for:

_Everything I've done, _she thought, as a cough formed within her throat, _was for my people. _Her thoughts flickered, at Roderich, at Gilbert—if she could not fight, she could marry, or give herself over; but she could fight, she merely needed the mentality rather than the plentiful physique: that was why she was in..._this._

"Fuck," she breathed, eyes shut against the world. The last soldier soon disappeared through the limits of sound; peace and dust remained—not one stray man was left, no one else to strap the lead to her bones. Limbs aching, heart aching, mind aching, she lay there among the debris—

No wonder, then, said the idle mind; she could have scowled, but it would have hurt too much—coughing did not help: if it stayed, it hurt the throat; if it was released, it cut the throat; the effort of checking it racked the whole body, and there was none of it anyway. Head lolling back, Elizaveta felt the paper, the finger, lying dead on the ground: Russia had dropped it, mockingly, to replace the grave flowers. There were no flowers, aside from those withered things in her hair. They were papery.

Still, being near dead...the well of strength was dry. There was but moisture left in the moss growing upon the clammy stone—up the frozen cylinder it traveled, and so she flinched when the hand came. It was cold. Cold—and yet, hot as ice—white and freezing; the touch was familiar. It was light as a feather.

The feather was upon the shoulder; it pressed, though not harshly; still, it could not be described as gentle. The hand was frail as her strength—brittle and cold and old.

She refused to open her eyes then. She had decided, some time ago, that she liked the dark. She preferred it; it was friendly, and it allowed ignorance to be an excuse. It was kind, and she wished it could be a closer friend.

But white—why white...

"Hey," said something, someone, something, _someone. _The ax scraped against the stone; it rasped with a familiar tinge of the past months, which were long as eternity, significant as the rest of time's children. It was a beautifully ugly voice, salty, bloody, white as fire. In the next moment there was nothing but one thing—_it could not be._

The pressure increased, it was beginning to hurt. Not able to growl, Elizaveta shifted with painful instinct—another cough ripped through her chest.

"Hey," said something again, and she summoned what was left of the moisture in the moss to flick her eyes open—it hurt: her eyes stung in white with water, but she knew it would come to pass. Everything comes to pass. Everything—absolutely everything: she had to keep on telling herself that, for though it passed, it took its very sweet time doing so; so that she could almost taste the bitter sparks on her tongue; it was parched, and thus drier. Spice.

"Fuck you," she whistled through her throat. It stung.

_It could not be._

The pressure increased, not unexpectedly; it squeezed upon her shoulder, and it took a large muster of strength to finally blink the fluids away from the eyes, so that they were a clear green again—the first sight was white, as it always was—the second blink brought the sight of red, and some part of her—somewhere, deep down or hidden—despaired: agony nudged at her again, and she knew that those papers would not have been so kind as to let her go: no, she had to confront; it was a gift of something...that would not irk her for the rest of eternity, and yet a curse of more pain. The choice of selfishness or selflessness, when both loosed their boundaries and came together.

And that hurt. More than anything, that hurt—the scorch of disappointment; denial, anxiety, fear—there was too much of it.

And yet, she did not want him dead. It had taken her time, so much time to realize that...but she did not wish death upon anyone, having seen too much of it as the clock ticked away—she had never wanted anyone to truly _die. _Gilbert Beilschmidt, though she hated him above all, was no exception. But in times such as now, when war tore the world apart—when history decided to twist itself about—when the nations crumbled—how could death not be a blessing?—at this point she could almost want them all to be dead. Roderich, Gilbert, Veneziano, Ludwig...and yet she would watch with relief on the day that each of them would pick themselves up, and charge into the distance with life.

She hated war.

She blinked rapidly, staring, always watching; though she ached, she let the next batter of coughing come to pass—shock, it overcame her then.

Charging upward, body screaming in protest, she could only slap him with strength that came by habit, before wrapping both arms around him, wondering _how _and _why in hell—_

"Get off me, woman!" he protested, attempting to flail; she saw now that the tin had been stripped away, or at least most of it, as she felt him, flesh and cloth and hair—from the unhealthy pallor of his skin, from the dried hard uniform, to the pinked and browned hair, silver still shining boldly beneath the blood. He was unusually warm—hot even—when she felt him; clearly the cold had been warded off, though his hands still felt like ice; remembering the documents found in Ludwig's office, she realized that it was fever.

But his head—feeling about the neck, she knew it was there—desperately feeling, just to know how cruel death was, she felt it, finding no seam—with a thin cry of joy and pain she kissed it, squeezing him till he was strangled—

"You're alive," she breathed, even as garbled speech flew from his lips. She was going into spasms—this was too unreal!

And yet it was.

He was so, so solid.

His eyes were ruby. No petty pink glaze upon the Kingdom of Prussia's gaze—no death frosting them over.

Clinging to him, something told her that she would never let go—a stupid little piece of wishful thought, no doubt: never let go, how ridiculous; and yet she did not release him, as he calmed between her limbs, resigning with guilty pleasure, rigid with denial. She could not even loosen about him—there was nothing but the jail scene playing and replaying itself in her mind—letting their hands drop, parting, and then the sickening sound of the guillotine's strike. Water, red, pink, silver, white, black. The swastika rose over all, as if to mock...

"Where in Isten's name have you been?" she muttered against his shoulder, before lifting her head away hastily; still, though, she did not let go; she wanted to savor it. As the vampire feasts on blood. The scent of metal clung to him.

"Get off," was the obstinate reply; she lifted her hand and slapped him again, not knowing what else to do. "Ow!"

"Where've you been?" she said again. "You were supposed to be _dead—"_

"Well, I'm so freaking _not—"_

"I saw your head!" she said, voice reaching a higher octave.

"It was a fake!"

"Impossible," she declared, eyes widening before she finished; it came to her, suddenly—the way it had fallen, the sudden hush of death, the blindfold of stars, the blood—she had seen it, touched it, waded in the water it buried itself in....

She had _suffered _with him at death.

"You were dead...," she whispered; it gave way to coughing, and he only watched as she did; held onto her and she held onto him. "I heard the thud. If you were dead—"

He grunted. When she looked up, his eyes were a bitter red. "The head was fake. They...held me down." Scowling, he looked away; admittance was ignominy. "They held me down up there. There were lots of them, Hungary—scheiße, there was a lot of back-up that we didn't notice; I couldn't beat off all of them. And my gun ran out..." His voice faded; still, his scowl deepened, and he finished to his own satisfaction. "Their leader was fun to kill though." He laughed, cruelly, forcefully—he found no love for death, though he had seen enough of it to mind less.

Elizaveta decided against shaking her head—it could only be true; she had known him for years, since they were incomplete nations, just children running about with swords of both wood and steel. Just as he had sifted out her identity from that of Elisabeth Wertheim's, it was with ease that she found that this man in front of her was real: as nations in human form, they were allowed the same detached senses as those immortal. _Stupid, _she scolded herself, knowing not to trust so easily; but it was what it was.

She noticed the shards of tin still upon his flesh then—of course, he could not have been thrown out so easily—time was needed, so much time; some things did not change, but could.

They trapped him. Shackled his person.

Still not releasing—he was too real, too solid, to let go—she let the glimpses of his uniform and body form in her mind; she looked about, saw the blood, the bruises, the sickly pallor of his skin. Dread formed with it, in a way almost instinctive, be it Gilbert or not: "What did they do to you." It was not a question—it was an exclamation, asking, wondering, but not questioning. The papers came to mind again.

A pause—it was too long, in Elizaveta's mind. With a ferociousness that came at will, that sapped her meager strength as well as supplied it, she asked, this time, demanded, "What did they do to you?"

He was biting his lips, not speaking; still, obstinately, she took him by the shoulders again, harder, saying, "What did they do to you?" The papers came to mind again...how Ludwig had admitted it, how Gilbert had been so emotionless for the past year.... A protectiveness that she had never felt before, for but Roderich and Veneziano, but never this man, emerged; it reared its head menacingly—some maternal side of her glared outwards, and she shook him. "Tell me!"

He only bit his lips harder.

"Tell me, God damn it," she said. "I found documents in Ludwig's office. Is it true..." he looked at her "...that, throughout the war...."

"Ja," he said, finally; his tone shook at the slightest, but was steely at the same time. His eyes grew hard. Elizaveta had never seen him like this, before the war—so close to tiredness, so close to a sort of trauma; he spread trauma, he did not suffer from it. She had known him for so long, and yet finally.... Not noticing how hard she was holding onto him, as if to crush him, she leaned in with complete urgency, green pools of eyes reflecting the cracked image of Gilbert Beilschmidt. "Russia...hurt my people. So much." He snorted softly, in disgust. "And der Führer"—derision—"doesn't like me a lot." The line along his brows became harsh, harsher than they needed to be. "My people aren't West's. They're different. And they don't like der fucking Führer.

"West didn't know; he only knew later, but they told him I was dead. He was pissed and everything; he lost my awesomeness after all." The grin curled along his chapped lips. There was no humor in it. "I'm just a small state now; I'm the most freaking awesome state that existed, but I'm still just a state.

"They experimented on me," he continued; Elizaveta could see the anger etched along his face, and she felt it too; she had suffered, though not as much, by the way it sounded—her Jews were still her people, no matter what the Germans said. She could never understand why others could do this to people.... "Russia's people and West's people. They raped the women and killed the children." A shudder passed through him, in painful memory; again, Elizaveta noted his love as a nation for his people; Prussian, Crusader, Knight he may be, he still had people. "Well, mostly Russia's. West's did too, but mostly they just did those experiments and sent them off to work." Another sour laugh. "Hitler thought I wasn't really important later on—before that he just sat around glaring and all. I had to go to jail several times—they said I was encouraging sedition against him, and that's when it happened."

"They..." Elizaveta spoke at last.

"Torture," he said, nodding coolly. "Later Hitler started doing it outright—he thought that I wasn't good enough, and didn't deserve his shithole of a Reich. What a failure," he added darkly.

She scowled at him, alarmed, angered, bewildered; "Why didn't you tell Ludwig?"

"And what would he have done?" he answered cuttingly. "Kicked him off and told the Allies and Jews that he was sorry?—West's a stubborn arschloch, and he loves his Führer so much."

"Oh Gilbert...," was all she could say, and she could only blink aside from that.

"Was?" he snapped, silver locks bouncing.

"Is this why..."

"Ja. Haven't you noticed that this Gott-forsaken war is tearing the world apart?"

"I have," she said quietly, not protesting; his statement was horribly obvious. "I don't think it'd be easy to miss." Now it was her turn to smile, so she did; it was bitter as his, and the worn grinning soldiers were twins. She sucked in a breath before wheezing at the slightest; the image shattered.

"And," he added, though almost hastily, "I've always wanted to know"—she looked at him, albeit with some anxiety for the topic—"what in hell do you see in Roderich?"

She should've slapped him.

She should've pummeled him into the ground.

She should've left him then and there.

She should've.

She could've.

In the end she did not.

She saw it coming. She knew it had to—it was bound to, heading her way; the circumstances catapulted them at her; the tension crackling in the air, like electricity powered it—I should have come sooner, but now...she had never been able to measure the distance from whence it came. Now it was laid before, and she wondered why this exchange had never occurred between them—they were too busy fighting. Hating each other. And she still hated him, but they had enough now, to ceasefire for the moment. Enough of what, she could not say.

Roderich. How could she tell him...as she stared wistfully at Gilbert's crimson eyes, some part of her wished that she had never met him, nor Roderich—if only one should be nothing to her, she would be happy; he would be happy—no tumbling love, no turmoil with the blood split between them. If she had only grown up to be a boy after all; if only it would be when she was still the wild girl on the plains (not that she would ever miss Mongolia, Turkey, or having to carry a bow and arrows out with her from so young an age...), beating Roderich—_Austria—_back till he could not even move; even before Gilbert began to defend her land.

But no.

In the end she had met someone so kind, someone who had given her love in a hate-filled life; someone who gave her a second glance, and more, not in hostility or for the sake of land—he was fortunate Austria, who valued peace. Perfection did not exist—but to Elizaveta, he was the closest to achieving it; never had anyone been so positively unreal. She loved him. She could trust him.

Gilbert had been hell-sent. He had made fun of all the trials of her life—hurt Roderich...was a barbarian who cared for none for himself; there was nothing but power, and all who even stumbled in his path were gleefully slaughtered. Studying his face now, she could see the years imprinted upon his face; the stupid boy, the hateful man, dishonorable dog he was. And yet—in the end, she had been proven wrong about his care: he loved Ludwig. His people. In some way, there were binds tying them together. If not loved, then cared for; in the end, he was proven to be human, if not a ruthless one.

In the end, however...they were both merely tired nations, one about to drop dead; it was painful to think of.

Had she fallen in love with this man?

This man...who was merely one step away from even _raping _Roderich—she had thought it so when he came back speaking of lost Silesia, though she had been quick in recalling the pious side of her Prussian foe—could she have fallen in love? It was not impossible to love two—and it was only now that she thought it, thought hard. _Unthinkable! _she snapped.

She proved herself wrong when she put their mouths together.

"Roderich is better than you," she hissed through their teeth; his lips were cold, pale, chapped; chapped and cold as hers. He was complying coolly, almost thoughtfully. "You may have claimed my vital regions first"—they smirked in unison—"but my heart is still Austrian territory." She then muttered against his tongue all that she thought, of him, of Roderich—of Roderich's kindness and heaven-sent presence, of Gilbert's disgusting being. They were all true, they both knew; but hate and love were married in a balanced union: thus she hated him, and did not all at once.

He was so, so solid.

And so, so real.

Endsieg.

She kissed him hard—out of a strange gut feeling, more than anything; she felt free, free to love, and yet bound not to; if not love, then passion itself: the white flames were swelling, threatening to overwhelm them both; he was absolutely Prussian, absolutely Germanic. This was the last time she would have this—Germanic, or else merely _Prussian. _This was the last time.

Roderich had little to do with this: no one could replace him, and Gilbert was but himself.

Potatoes, blood, beer, wurst, whatever taste Germanic came her way. The Germans; it was nothing but the Germans then.

They broke apart, and none too soon, for both had heard a disturbance in the distance; the moment was torn, and reality came crashing down upon them like waves.

How sweet is life, she could only muse, a little bitterly. Gazing upwards, she could only be saddened by the sight of the browned uniform, the wrinkles, the scars...

"So now..."

"Now," he agreed, calmly; they both knew what was to come; it was too obvious.

There was a shout; stray Soviets were heard, for it could be no one else. The voices were still far. Another blast of Russian replied to it.

"Well," she said.

"Ja."

"Well," she said again. She was then binding her heart in iron; she knew what was to come; and in preparation she could do this. "I haven't exactly fought on your side for a while—"

"A long while—"

"—but for old time's sake?"—and new?

"Ja," he agreed, so very heartily.

She kissed him with a quiet passion, finally loosening her grip about him. He seemed to appreciate it.

They both smiled tiredly—for once, some compromise had been laid between them, at least for the time being. Green eyes clashed finely with red at that moment—from life to death, emeralds and rubies; the leaves of the forest, the fires of hell.

"Endsieg."

They lifted themselves, and each other, quietly, painfully—gingerly they stretched, feeling the life returning to their wearied limbs. Harsh Russian was heard in the distance once more—Gilbert Beilschmidt and Elizaveta Héderváry had been found, alive, and, of course, were ready to be one with Mother Russia.

"Do you have anything to be used as a weapon?" she asked as they stood. Figures were approaching, silhouetted against distant dust.

"Of course not," he replied, grinning sharply.

She smiled grimly, indulgently. "Hmph." Her heart was slamming at her ribs, despite it; and excitement and nervousness both coursed through her: she would fight, for it would come to pass—she had lost, she knew, and she would lose, but the final victory would be somehow worth it. Somehow.

And with her Prussian companion, she could almost see the same thoughts etched within his mind.

"Endsieg?" she said, letting the Austrian accent flow through her tongue; she loved it, the feel of it—the finale was almost perfect.

"Ja," he said, grinning madly; a ray of light, after some thought, slipped to his hair, his eyes; they caught; they lit it and it blazed a beautiful, wicked white and red. The look of him, ready for battle—it was so appropriate, despite the blood they knew would come. Elizaveta's heart drummed harder: she was becoming impatient, and almost anxious; she was experiencing a sort of high cause only by the burn of war. But they would live, at least for the time being—

"Kol...," was the familiar voice. Footsteps. There were so many of them, following: boots grinding the earth away to capture, to win; some direction they could not identify, so they were quick to prepare flexibility.

_He's here._

Casting one last grin at the Kingdom of Prussia—Gilbert Beilschmidt, the new People's Republic of Hungary sprung forward; they both did.

"Oi, Ungarn!" he called as he met with a bulking Soviet too far ahead. "For this service, I claim Budapest!"

"There's no point in it!" she yelled back.

Hysteria.

"Still!" A thud; he had gotten the soldier right in the throat, grinding his knuckles just so that he had time to twist the man's rifle away and have him with the bayonet.

Blood.

"You want the rifle or the bayonet?" he called, getting another Soviet in the chest; the thrust was quick, and easy. He sneered as the dead man slid off the blade.

"The rifle, of course!"

"Jawohl!" With a careless grin, he tossed the rifle; Hungary caught the hard weight quickly—it hurt her hands, of course—and turned about to meet a slimmer Soviet whose rifle was firing at her; with a duck she thrust forward and shot him in the stomach; feeling the bullets graze the _air _above her; excitement. Though she winced at the _squeal_ of pain, she felt like grinning—laughing, even: the rifle, so useful a weapon!—finally in her grasp! Now she could fight!

Ignoring her past injuries, her aching throat, she took the position of a sniper being watched—the irony—shooting at the Soviets. It hurt, but it was wonderful at once, in a most sick and twisted way—still, she thought, ecstatic without happiness, if it was a final victory, then so be it!

Sweat trickled in her eyes; she wiped it away quickly, heaving the rifle about her shoulder and letting the blood spray over her ground. She grit her teeth—she could hear Ivan in the distance...once he arrived she would be sure to shoot, harder, before she and Gilbert would have to admit defeat...!

"Oi, Ungarn!" Gilbert shouted again, this time as a sort of afterthought. He slashed at another man, still grinning; the fire was in his eyes, reflecting hers. "Ich liebe—"

...

**"...For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,**

**Turning again toward childish treble, pipes..."**

**- Shakespeare**

...

**_PT: -Groans- I am so sorry...it was originally supposed to be out earlier, but when I was almost done, PFBTHBBT, my file somehow got corrupted and I could only save two fucking pages of it. Not even. That's only a few paragraphs more than my back-up files. Like, two paragraphs more. AAAARRRGH._**

**_- So YEAH, drill team practice has started again. I am indeed held back by it. –Flails- And might I mention going to the Military Ball without intention to wear a dress –wince- or dance or anything? Haha, so I've scrambled off twenty-five bucks for that. I'll shut up now._**

**_- I hope I've cleared up all that stuff on the paper and everything. And no, even though I've left a cliffhanger, they didn't get cut off because they were killed or anything._**

**_- Next chapter is the last –bows- I thank you all for following this story~_**

**_- I wanted more action in this chapter. So yeah._**

**_- And I meant to say this for the hell of it a while ago, and now it's too late but...GOOD GOD, Hetalia's outdone themselves with Nihao Zhong Guo; Aiya, Si Qian Nian, and the new Maru Kaite Chikyuu~ Ahem. Yes._**

**_- FF has killed all my line-breakers, so I'm adopting a new one. –Flails- So yeah._**


	7. Prussian Soldier

_Disclaimer: ...-Mutters in the corner about horrible internet connection-_

...

**"****...And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all**

**That ends this strange eventful history..."**

**- Shakespeare**

...

He fell.

One moment there was nothing—nothing but the silent burst of fire, the harsh look of pain crossing his face—time seemed to slow down, if only a little; the shot tore his uniform, ripped a bleeding mess out of his chest; his mouth opened, slightly, to display a scream so shrill no one but the dogs could hear. The gleaming rusted steel dropped from his hands, quickly: the soldier it had impaled fell at a faster pace.

He crumpled. His whole body did—buckling in on itself, falling to the ground: he hit with a thud.

And just like when he had "died," Elizaveta could only watch; with hot frustration and cold shock all at once, locked in stalemate: She sprang forward then, to catch him: though she did not succeed, she still pulled him back up. He was soft and heavy in her arms; his clothing was his shell. She could see his mouth working when she knelt and turned him over to face her, could feel his wild heart strangled only by the ribs—concern gushed out with her own panicked breath, not wanting him to _die—_

"I'm fine," he croaked at her, shaking his head. Eyes widening—he could still talk?—she looked down at his chest, feeling about the red hole she saw—the bloody crater had been opened almost in the middle of his chest, below his collar bone; ignoring the rush of Russian speech around them—_they had already lost—_she flinched when Gilbert did; hastily she pried her own fingers away, seeing that his Iron Cross had deflected a half of the blow, though the bullet was deep. Squinting down, stifling a cough, she saw that it would be best to pick it out with some instrument. Something she did not have.

"Kol..."

Stifling a groan, stilling her pounding heart with ease, she turned to face him calmly, albeit slowly—steeling her limbs and eyes both to face the Russian and hold onto her Prussian companion at the same time. Her past injuries tingled with sensitive memory of the flesh; the metallic consciousness irked her so much that it hurt, and she fit her lip between teeth in effort; he heaved in her arms, and made an indignant noise that she had no problem ignoring; _"Hush," _she hissed from the corner of her mouth, though he had already fallen silent. The whole time she kept her eyes on Ivan—he was fast for his bulk, and she ducked—both her and her burden—when he took a swipe with the rifle in his hand, eyes gleaming—this scene was nothing to him but that of a cat and a mouse. Heart pounding, she kept her eyes level—the spark of madness lay in those opposing eyes; for a moment, amidst the panic in her chest, she felt almost pity for him—time and what came with it had done this to him. But she knew he was the enemy, and that thought was soon lost for later finding.

"Become one with Russia, da?" he said grinning; Elizaveta winced.

"Is that all you can say?" she replied, taking a swipe. His face did not change, though again he took up the chant of "Kolkolkol..." Straightening herself, she dared to loosen her fingers, touching, feeling about the bullet wound in Gilbert's chest; he hissed and for a moment wriggled slightly.

"So my bullet got him!" Ivan said excitedly, eyes widening with pleasure; it ran clear in his eyes; it took effort not to wince. "That was one of my last bullets, da!—Stalin must be a good thing after all..." Elizaveta again had to suck in a twitch of reply. "That was the best shot I've had in a long time, da?" He reached out a hand.

"Piss off!" Elizaveta spat, pulling Gilbert back; he gave a shout of protest at being protected like a treasure, at which she ignored once more. Eyes blazing with green fire, she glared into the childish disappointment above her; clutching at Gilbert like a lifeline, backing away with two steps. Static electricity went down her spine, at the outburst, at the danger: Ivan would not have this victory, at least! "Stop talking," she went on, cold and feral. "Just take us in already! Spread the communism! You've won!—get it over with!" She clenched her teeth, misaimed, and sliced her lip; blood welled and flowed down her chin: She looked, for a moment, awfully dangerous.

It broke. The façade Ivan had, at least very naturally; he looked confused, hurt, angry—surely he was not that insane? "If you insist, then..." He beckoned at his men, who sprung forth readily—those who still lived; blood had flown in choppy waves, and the designs they'd left behind rippled over the ground; like watered-down silk. Their rifles were out, and the horrible feel of being aimed at emerged within Elizaveta's consciousness; staring down into the deathly barrels, she waited.

...

"Don't move."

"Tell me that when you're not reaching into my body," he snapped back.

Elizaveta chose to ignore this: fingers down the red hole, bloody, torn, and _open. _Tainted silver lay just beyond her reach, while Gilbert twitched and swore above her; she'd propped him up against the wall, though she might as well have been trying to pick a screw from stone—the movement about them made everything difficult.

"Why couldn't you use _chloroform?—_you Hungarians have no sense of—"

"Pipe down!" She glanced over her shoulder as the cart rattled onto rocky territory; Ivan was up front. Something sharp jabbed at her insides—its name was anxiety. "Do you want me to get this out or not?"

"It hurts like a bitch whether you get it out or not," he said bluntly.

"Sucks." She squinted downwards, focused again, adding to herself, _Besides, it'll get infected down there._ And of course, that thought was hers and hers only—undisclosed, secret. She jabbed downwards again, her nail scraping against the metal; Gilbert flinched and hissed, "Mein Gott, woman!"

Elizaveta bit her lip as the wheel of the cart leaped over a rut—it shoved her finger deeper, causing Gilbert to groan; looking at the agony on his face, and the bloody wound, she could feel the pain as well; like metal, it pressed and cut at her own chest, sliced her stomach with the sensitivity. "Hold still," she muttered, feeling the flesh rip beneath her—the sudden bump had pushed in her one digit farther than she had dared, but now that it was there anyway...while the Prussian almost seemed to be trying to wriggle away... _Fool, _she thought, frustrated; this was where the sweat came in, leaking from her brow, sliding down slowly; the tension, through the noise of the cart—for the Russians had simply loaded them into the back, as occupied nations—blotted out the outside world. Gilbert squirmed at the slightest, and Elizaveta braced her other hand against his shoulder. "Stop moving."

She felt the bullet move; encouraged, she slipped her nail under the sliver of lead and pushed it up.

_Yes..._

"God damn it, woman!" he screeched—_be a man! _she snapped, too focused to really reply—and gave an enormous twitch, and which Elizaveta grit her teeth and pulled; the slug came out, gore clutching to her nail and blood leaking from the small hole, now empty. _Isten. _She slumped backward in relief, as did Gilbert, whose hand immediately went to his chest; he was breathing hard, as if she had torn out his lungs instead of the little burden. _Ungrateful—, _she tried to think, but failed; she knew wounds like that hurt, and that was an understatement.

_Isten._

_Roderich would've been practically crying at this point. _For a moment, her lips quirked—temptation to smile; strange, as she was so worried about him. _He'd better be all right, _she added with a quick grimness. The thought of him hurt was horrible to her mind—unbearable. For a moment she thought she heard Chopin's music, like a terribly beautiful, agonizing death.

How long, she mused aside, had they been traveling?—an hour, at least? The cart was covered, and they were rattling along in some small room set in the back, where nothing was stored but invaded—she refused to think "captured"—nations. Not that Gilbert was really a nation now; the thought of it did not hurt, but did call forth empathy: her own years of foreign rule had been frustrating—though she had been more than happy with Roderich, she would have preferred the Austro-Hungarian; being almost his, side-by-side...those were glorious days...

"Are you even going to ask," Gilbert suddenly said, breaking the silence they'd achieved, "how in hell I survived and got back?" His eyes, wine-colored, moved to look at her; she looked back with idleness, giving undivided attention.

"...Yes." She cocked her head to the side, eyeing the hole in his chest. "I should've thought of that..." She bit her lip, nodding. Then leaned forward with every intention to bind the wound; her hand reached for her own sleeve.

"Well," he said, leaping right into it—though she could hear hesitation on his part, for retelling a defeat—"they...held me down—I managed to kill their leader. They were reporting to him, so probably it was him. I got him on the head; slammed it with my gun." Elizaveta looked closely at the bullet, nodding affirmative for him to continue; as she did, she tore the cleaner sleeve of her uniform, the air ripping with the sound. "So they took me to Hitler. He charged me with that traitor shit and sent me off to some camp at your place." Elizaveta stopped. Cold sweat formed on her brow again, with the shock—he'd been on her land the whole time...?—and yet, she'd never noticed—

"Ja, he did," he said, staring at her frozen hands; with haste she thawed them, with her level mind, and proceeded to tear the green cloth to strips. "You should've seen it..."

"I did," she said, determinedly winding the first strip about his chest; she refused to remember, to again see her people—_hers—_clambering about when they could, behind a fence, thin to nothing but bones and a thin cover; she thought a tear rolled down her face, but she was not sure. Her fingers stiffened. "The Germans were in my land, you know."

"Right." His voice softened, perhaps... "So they experimented on me there. They didn't remove any of my limbs or anything, but they injected acid"—_Prussic acid, _mocked the air about them, though neither of them added to it—"and...other stuff..." His voice, she noted, tightening the bandages, was harsh now...like some jagged razor, rusted, bloody. Again, empathy nudged at her; she thought she felt her heart soften, some way or the other. "But I managed to escape. Dug a hole near the fence. I managed to get out tunneling—some Jews tried following me too, but by then the guards had seen. They were shooting like fucking crazy—the Jews were already dead by the time we saw them coming, so I could only go.

"I wanted to get to the border with my place. The commies were headed there, but then...ja, that's when I saw you. You tried charging at them or something?"

She nodded; "I did. They came and...confronted me."

"Endsieg," he said, shaking his head. "Hmph. They really hit you hard."

"I've noticed," she snapped, with a slight tremor; swearing once in her mind at the shake of weakness: It had been so painful to fall... "But...what else was there to do?"

"Surrender properly."

"Never," she said quickly, firmly.

His mouth tightened in the shadows of a smile; "Ja."

There was a pause again, one that would melt into a halt: Elizaveta finished and settled back, the blood on her fingers cooling with the air; it stiffened, dried, and soon became a layer thin as the skin beneath it. She blinked, then—looking at the blood, the thought of Berlin hit her—the Germans, the ones whose anger had flared into the beginning of the end of the world—at least, as any of them knew it. Their suffering, and her own people...she blinked fiercely, trying to forget it—Roderich's face appeared in her mind's eye, and it was then that she could only smile sadly. He had made her a _lady—_oppressed her in the most beautiful way: she believed in it...but war, a crisis had brought out the buried side of her. Inside, there would always be a battle between what Roderich had wrought, and what Gilbert had aided.

"The finger," she said about an hour later. Gilbert had leaned his head back against the side of the cart, breathing the chilly air: white fog emerged from his mouth. So he knew...what a belated thought.

"Ja?" he grunted, unmoving.

"I—"

"If you must know," he said, closing his eyes. "I found it near you after the explosion. I thought it'd be weird to be there, so I thought you'd probably picked it up. Don't know why in hell you would, but—"

She said cuttingly, "I felt like it."

"Right." He nodded at the slightest; though it might as well have been the cart's motion. Elizaveta managed a scowl; her head ached. "So I picked it up. I rolled it up in the paper the other day for you to discover it—"

"I didn't." No wonder the paper had been so heavy...

"Of course not," he growled.

"Prussia."

"Ja, whatever...so you didn't find it. I saw the lump in your pocket and I put it in the pocket of your uniform when I got it from Hungary."

"And why in hell would you do all that?" she inquired; despite the heat of her determination to remain stern she found that it slipped—before she could check it—to something that closely resembled bewilderment. Why?—why waste so much, to just return a finger?—the thought of it was almost ridiculous...in fact, it was. _Never knew he could be so fussy, _she grumbled to herself. But then his personality had changed, at least for part of the war—to see his own brother help tear apart the world he had known...

He opened his eyes. "If you must know, I just felt like it too."

...And yet, the sound of such a reply did nothing to unnerve her—she smiled wryly, and very coldly in stubbornness; "I felt like it too," he had said—she could not argue with that. And when in hell had Gilbert Beilschmidt been able to word something in such a way?—all the time, but here...when the Great War occurred...everything felt different; only felt it. She accepted that, for she found herself able to.

"And that arsenic poisoning was done by the guards, by the way. Hitler could care less about you then. They tried."

At this, her line of thought shifted—the stream found its way to a waterfall, washing down to foam at the bottom: thus she curled her lip; "So you didn't do anything. You found this out when?"

Bam, went his eyes, flicking open fast as a bullet; he looked at her in a way almost indignant, close as anything of the sort could get to one such as him—demonic, she noted, looking at his eyes. Red. "While you were stuck in there." He scowled—almost. "It wasn't just because of the Soviets invading your place. I noticed so..."

_Would you have rathered to see me die?_—a stupid question, as she saw him—_saw him—_fumble for words. German, Hungarian, French, English—she watched him pass through those languages, looking any word—_any—_to compose a proper retort; he needed no skill borrowed from Mozart, and she knew that there was no way to express anything properly; nothing could answer the question she knew was gleaming in her eyes.

She shrugged, as Russian sounded from the front, and knew that they had arrived—where?—Russia?—she could hardly believe that, for it did not take even a day to get from Hungary to Russia via ancient carts. She looked at him—Gilbert Beilschmidt, for she knew Prussia was soon to be no more; he was out of stones to kill those birds stealing his sweets, so he could only watch hopelessly as they fluttered away, slowly as they wanted; would he be all right?—as she stared at the gaping hole in his chest she almost wanted to help the crumbling state, once such a proud, glorious nation...

The back of the cart was opened up, and Elizaveta saw patches of snow—the air was sharper here, and for some reason she thought of the flower edelweiss; it could only symbolize so much to her own mind. Blinded momentarily, her only coherent thoughts were those of sorrow—more oppression, and years to come of it. And she would fight to keep her nation; she had not been born to be used, a cow under a yoke, a dog on a leash. Impulsively she reached one way, and clasped her hand with a white, cold one, rough from days and nights of battle.

...

Nineteen fifty-six it was, and what a hellish year. She was sure, though, that it was worth it—it could hardly be anything else.

"Ich liebe dich," she said calmly, walking through the streets of Hungary. Through the corner of her eye, Elizaveta spied Ivan, no doubt snooping once or twice in case of more rebellion. _Fool, _she mocked, _the rebellion will never stop. _Gilbert had died, or near to it—she knew he had been dissolved, and he lay somewhere in something of a limbo, lying in what could only be described as a coma on the ground somewhere; surely near her own Hungarian streets. She felt no fear, stalked by Ivan, knowing that any moment could be her last—he could decide, somehow that, a piece of land like her would prove to be nothing than a burden, if he would have liked to fancy it that way—he could spring upon her and kill her, though she would not fall without a fight. She did not fall so easily.

He knew now that he was bothered—at the very least—at her German statement; it was puzzling to her as well, but she could remember that unfinished line that day, years ago, when she had first fought—at least in a more than fairly long while—with Gilbert again. The excitement still remained, and echoed through her whole being, because it was so new, and such a tear in her perception of space and time and the world itself.

She walked some more; it was cold, she noted, looking at the steely sky—if she reached up, could she touch the flat of a blade? It was no longer the age of those.

The streets were dark; it was almost an alley. Ivan snooping about was appropriate.

She turned, pivoted on her heel, around a corner; there was a rustle—she was surprised someone with such a bulk could achieve such stealth—behind her. She was not trying to lose him, just ignore him. The cemetery was this way, after all.

She did not think as she rounded another corner—Ivan was hot on her heels, and primal feelings took hold as best as they could.

The war was over, and thank God. Relief had swamped her the day der Führer had finally died—it was appropriate, she'd thought, when learning of what details she could. Der Führer's grip had then ceased to exist: remnants were his shadows. Though they stretched and spread phantom claws over all that dared near, it was over. At least, der Führer was over. The ache, the war, had not stopped—not the Great War, but the rest of the century of toils: that had merely begun. The dull knife was still forcing its mangled tip into her chest...knowing Ivan was watching, always watching, she took a wrong turn, trying not to shudder or reach for her chest: the phantoms of the bullets that had pierced her there, and her shoulders.

At least they had not been the cannonballs.

Ivan had been merciless the day she had decided to finally cut the bloody communist seal from her flag—the day she had followed up and declared rebellion. Running afresh within her mind, there was again the memory hellfire and broken bones. She had expected the tanks, and thank God none of them had hit her, for she knew her existence was that of her people...and yet, if only...

There was a shift in the reality, a warp—it was then that she knew Ivan to be gone, done with following her. She did not allow herself the wry smile, lest he was sneaking a glance, or two, or three—it would seem suspicious. Nothing she did was suspicious enough to matter.

Or was it?

Abruptly she spun about, rewound her steps, took the right turn this time—the cemetery was not so far now. She could practically feel the grain of the stone beneath her palms, her padded fingers, skimming down the wonderfully cool mark of death; the eerie peace, and the glowing-white skeleton to meet her.

There is it was, in the distance, she spied the flickering of white through drifts of cold snow—silver could not blend, not well enough, for her.

Nor could red.

She knew she shouldn't go faster—as if to reveal her eagerness, which she smothered quickly, assuring herself it was not there (even though it was, and the background consciousness told her as much; she was bad at hiding). She kept her feet steady, quiet—the glaringly metallic sky flashed on the snow, and it beamed at her, giving silent encouragement, yet still dripping mockery; like the pieces of a puzzle, she let her facial expression fall into place, so that she would appear blank as the moon. He was watching, she was sure. The colors of the season flecking the gravestones nodded at that theory.

She tried not to smile like a child then, instead wrapping the thin coat about her shoulders with the aura of purpose; the snow was beautiful, like death. Fitting.

She ignored the speed of her heart, grinding against her ribs.

She ignored the frantic blindness in her mind, screaming for acceleration.

As if she expected herself to fly.

It was then that she reached her destination, and thank goodness, for her patience had been tested one second past too many. He was there, having fled from the Soviets' grip to stay in her country, at least for a while; and yet he was not out, so it was almost all right—Hungary was their territory, while Prussia had none. _Not much longer, _she retorted; she perked her chin up higher, to show what could not be seen. She and her people belonged to no one. They never had.

(Not that it had taken long to think that.)

"Gilbert?" she said, voice raspy still from the past month's shouting. She blinked, and halted at the Prussian's gravestone, then looked about.

"Ja."

Like a leopard, he sprang from behind it, cocky, unusually quiet—the cold had done that, frozen him in place. He was ablaze with fire, wintry, as always. Gilbert stared at her, and it was almost awkward. Elizaveta knew, very well, that he had recovered his personality—_himself—_from the struggles of the Great War, after being taken to a pit of suffering, the concentration camp; something there had triggered it, galvanized the shield of tin from his skin—the need of being himself had emerged; bless clairvoyance. And yet, she knew, it would take years for him to recover. Some part eagerly awaited that, and another repulsed the idea, wallowing in the will to avoid. It would take time to put together one such as him.

"Hello," she wanted to say, "how are you?"—the thought put a reluctant, fish-slippery smile on her lips.

He grunted, pointed at the gravestone beside him; it was small, yet bravely shining. The dull gray rock wrought grimness upon his face, and—perhaps?—a tear in his eye. Imprisoned, it glimmered there, thought it could have been the cold. "A random Prussian soldier died. I found him near my border"—neither of them wished to say _former—"_and buried him here.

"I don't really know him." Elizaveta blinked at him to go on. "Never really did. I just remember seeing him sometimes, with the other troops. He never really stood out, he was just another guy. Don't even know his name." He shrugged, eyes shining harder. "I found him lying dead on the ground. He was so freaking mutilated..."

She observed him for a moment then, took in his form: he looked no better than the last time she had seen him, at least before he had come to Hungary: still he was pale, thin; in fact, he was thinner, and paler. His icy skin had almost shrunken down to his bones, and she imagined herself to be in the same state, though she had not caught a single glimpse of a mirror in so long. The last time she had seen him, before he had come to Hungary, was when the cart had opened up, spilling in white light, and the Soviets had taken them, separated them. She had felt little, only maybe a bit wistful, as she had found herself to be alone once more.

She hated loneliness. She hated what brought it.

First Roderich, and then Gilbert...

She had seen Roderich too. Scraped his borders, and watched with crystalline tears the weary man in the distance, still in a fine coat, though worn. Her poor Roderich, his forlorn look as he stared blankly at the blue Danube to the side. Her heart had then, at the very last, crumpled. If only she had called out to him—but then what would that solve? How could she fix the last time she had seen him, before she had left for Berlin? No, only time could bring that, and leading action.

Time. What a cruel hand it wielded.

She turned to the stone, where it was blank but for the words declaring him a Prussian soldier to the last. Fitting, she said again in her mind.

Movement in the cold air about them; Gilbert had shuffled to her side, and they held vigil.

The only things lacking were candles.

She touched his chest, where the Iron Cross lay; she felt a protest rumbling in his throat, though it never came; she was not relieved, for she would have taken it either way. Fingering the grooves, the icy metal, she wondered in a way not idle how the bullet in his chest had fared—when he been taken away from her—_how stupidly romantic, _she grumbled—he had begun to look weak, his life bleeding out and staining the bandages.

Rubbing against the spot, and him not protesting—this scene almost seemed to fit, in their long history of...she decided to leave that alone, for others—what others?—to decide.

They were too tired to do much at that point, when not in the name of practicality, and nations.

"Well, _I'm _tired," Gilbert proclaimed, choosing this piece of time to lean against Elizaveta, at the very slightest. She grimaced. Instead focusing on his snowy locks of hair, she bit her lip—it bled again, though she was plenty used to it—and played with the cross about her neck. What was it...an anchor to Prussia, to the Germans? Was this all he had?

"I'm tired too," she said.

"And how's it going, then? Russland slackening?" he said conversationally. Elizaveta grimaced again.

"Not yet," she said, recalling the nation's face, "but he will."

"Of course." He almost grinned—she caught the slight crinkle of the lines on his face, as if his mouth was to curve...he came out almost expressionless.

She shoved against his cross, grimacing; the wound had faded to nothing, but the iron edges hurt, as did the bullet embedded into it (he had not removed it?). He tensed.

"And you?" she said scathingly; regret would not come, though it almost hurt to see the proud nation...almost humbled: He looked wearier than he already was suddenly, she'd hit a nerve; in reply, he shrugged. She was not used to seeing him like this still; not in past conflicts, not in their current crisis.

_You miss him, _thus epiphany spoke to Gilbert, in the best way it could—only Elizaveta heard. _You miss Ludwig, your brother. _Elizaveta shrugged at it; why tell her this?—it was not her brother. She wanted to tell him that, but he knew, did he not?—he was the one suffering from it; one look at his toneless red eyes was enough. In a way, she thought, he loved his brother a lot, and this split the Germans so cruelly.

But that was a conclusion long passed.

"What am I doing," she suddenly sighed—abrupt, it made her not care who was listening. "I'm talking to you about this..."

She bent down then, brushing cold powder off the surface of the stone. It stung her hands, which were still scratched from the past weeks of rebellion; appreciation grudgingly poked out its head, for the silence of the graveyard, with no one but the dead to accompany her. She'd had too much gunfire and screaming thickening the air about her, the air she breathed; the air here was clean, white.

Silent.

Gilbert stooped down beside her, as, with reverence, Elizaveta used wet hands to tear away a layer of dead ivy; she left the withered cornflowers at the bottom, long absorbed of their color: a tribute from someone...

An idea was sent in her mind for appeal.

She immediately agreed.

Breathe. She did just that as stupid excitement gripped her—she was paying tribute to a dead Prussian? How did this happen? Suddenly she was confused, with what she was doing there, what she was thinking, what time it was, what she had been doing in the past few weeks. A cough racked her chest, batting the severed thread away, for her to organize. Her breath spread a thin layer of neat water on the stone.

"Do you have a knife?" she asked.

Gilbert cocked an eyebrow—she did not need to look to know he did; after some rustling, he handed her a rusted blade, still keeping respectful silence. She reached out with a pinked hand, only then realizing how cold it was: the knife came to her, so she closed her fingers about it. "...Danke."

His breath shifted in cadence. Surprised. "Bitte."

Elizaveta turned the blade in her hands, admiring the workmanship; it had probably been torn from a bayonet or something of the sort, for it had no handle; she breathed again, blowing fog onto it. It gleamed, white, against the silver for an instant before fading away. Forlorn as she. Easing it into her frozen grip, she held it against the stone; aiming as easily as her childhood bow and arrows.

It ran in, a quarter of an inch; it hurt her hands, but she gave the start a nod; the blade had not broken from the impact.

So she went on carving at the geological flesh.

The years had been hard. She could account for that, as she lifted the blade and rammed it in again. Still, that would be an understatement. Slam—the blade penetrated the rock. They had been hectic—and yet still, that was not enough. She had emerged alive, as did her husband—she ignored the facts—and so did Veneziano, who had suffered under the Allies but, she was sure, had retained his...closest to innocence. A tear jabbed at the edges of her eyes.

She pried the blade out again and chiseled the next letter. Almost done.

She had fallen in love, or near to it. She hated Gilbert still—she still hated him so much; but as he shifted in the cold beside her, clothes nearly in rags...

"Prussia is dead," she murmured. Next letter...

"Not exactly," he drawled beside her, recovering spirit. "The land may be gone, but the people are still there..."

She finished the letter only in time to put her other hand on his arm; he flinched, she flinched—both at the contact. The material of his clothing had softened to cotton. "Right." She dropped the blade and looked down at her one bleeding hand; she was a warrior again, like the old days before Roderich had come along and brought her eloquence. Was that a good thing, or bad? She felt free, almost, and violent.

_The sun..._

She lifted her eyes, as did he; above them, the sky grimaced, at long last splitting itself into a gaping hole, releasing the hot butter sun pouring onto the clouds. The gold melted into the metal fluff, warm and belated, but there—this symbolized one thing at once: The future, and the years to come.

They stood.

Elizaveta blinked, dared to then look at her side to the Prussian still staring with an unreadable expression at the sheer brilliance above them. In the mist the yellow-white illuminated his face, the curves of it, every line, from frozen hair to ruby eyes; somehow, she felt as if she could stand here forever, if only he would stay silent; they were in that moment alike. (As if they never had been like that once...)

She shook her head, looking away from the shattering of the light upon him. The present. The present mattered, if she were to work for more of the light that had chosen such a time to reveal itself.

She left later. Time had not been recorded, as she plunged into the trail for freedom, and her nation; she could have been standing there with the still-alive Prussian for hours, for all one could tell; but when she did he had grinned, felt the spasming heart in her chest, in looking forward to many more days ahead of them as the carved words in the grave—of a dead nation's soldier—_gleamed _with small power:

"Resurgam."

...

"**...Is second childishness and mere oblivion,**

**Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."**

**- Shakespeare**

...

_**PT: Aru~~ Final chapter. Crap, I can't believe I've plowed my way through this fic. –Disbelief- So yeah, this is the end...if anyone is confused, please comment and ask for me to clear anything up for you. I really enjoyed writing this, and it'd be nice to know that you guys enjoyed reading this just as much.**_

_**- So I'll be writing another PrussiaHungary fic—I've decided that it will be a three-shot, unless I change my mind. It won't be as...epic, I guess, taking liberties from modesty, from this fic; the writing style will be very, very simple, especially next to this—or at least I think? But it will be simpler. Austria actually appears in this one. –Flails- ...So if it would ever pique your interest... And at the same time perhaps a China-centric Three Kingdoms fic, straying from a bit of my headcanon. Haha, shameless advertising. I KNOW 8D**_

_**- The rebellions mentioned here are of Hungary's...revolution, if you may, against Soviet rule. Because, yeah, they didn't really like the Russians...-underplayunderplay-**_

_**- Might I mention that I'm in my school library writing this now?**_

_**- How ironic that I'm finishing this at about the end of the school year...to sophomore year I go~!...God help me.**_

_**- Potatoes to anyone who gets what "Resurgam" means.**_

_**- ...Okay, this is getting awkward xD Well, thank you all for reading! –Bows-**_


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